Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

ULLAPOOL PIER ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL

Read the Third time and passed.

CROMARTY FIRTH PORT AUTHORITY ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL

Considered; to be read the Third time tomorrow.

GLASGOW CORPORATION (PARKS, ETC.) ORDER CONFIRMATION

Mr. Gordon Campbell presented a Bill to confirm a Provisional Order under Section 7 of the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act 1936, relating to Glasgow Corporation (Parks, etc.); and the same was read the First time; and ordered to be considered upon Tuesday next and to be printed. [Bill 176.]

Oral Answers to Questions — FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

Iceland

Mr. Laurance Reed: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will seek to pay an official visit to Iceland.

Mr. James Johnson: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether he will now seek to pay an official visit to Iceland.

The Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Julian Amery): My right hon. Friend has at present no such plan; but if we can get

negotiations going again, he would certainly be ready to take part in them.

Mr. Reed: If the Belgian authorities can reach agreement with Iceland and the German Chancellor can take a special initiative to try to reach agreement, is it not time that we did the same? Does my right hon. Friend not appreciate the strategic significance of Iceland, or does he not care if we blow a damned great hole in the defences of NATO?

Mr. Amery: My hon. Friend will realise that negotiations in Reykjavik between the Germans and Icelanders have made good progress, but they have not yet by any means come to a conclusion. The German Chancellor will be stopping in Reykjavik on his way to Greenland, where he is going fishing, but entirely within territorial waters. It is important to realise that we are not comparing like with like. The German fishing fleet fishes for ocean perch, red fish, or coal fish, whereas we are concerned with cod. The Germans fish at a distance from the Iceland coast different from that at which our fishing fleet operates. One cannot exactly compare the two sets of negotiations, but we hope that any progress the Germans make with Iceland will lead to similar progress in our case.

Mr. Johnson: Is it not tiresome, now, in 1973, to be told in this Chamber that we must do what the Germans are doing, when for 12 months or more Government Ministers and some of us from our constituencies have gone to Iceland and attempted to obtain a settlement, and, indeed, have had five separate sets of talks on this matter? Nobody can chide us about not attempting to get a settlement.

Mr. Amery: I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. James Johnson) for what he has done on this subject.

Mr. Goronwy Roberts: Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that what he said in answer to the hon. Member for Bolton, East (Mr. Laurance Reed) does not rule out the possibility of the Foreign Secretary's visiting Reykjavik for direct talks if he thinks that such talks would be helpful to a solution?

Mr. Amery: I am glad to reaffirm that if we can get negotiations going


again my right hon. Friend is perfectly ready to take part.

EEC Council of Ministers

Mr Jay: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what subjects are on the agenda for the next meeting of the Council of Ministers of the EEC.

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. John Davies): The estimate of subject headings likely to come up for discussion in the Council this month was lodged in the Vote Office on 28th June.

Mr. Jay: Did the Government agree. in the Council of Ministers, to a document which sought to lay down conditions for the GATT talks this autumn, and which stated that the principles and mechanisms of the common agricultural policy should not be called ino question and were therefore in no way matters for negotiation? Is this not a complete breach of all the pledges we have been given about a thorough review of the CAP?

Mr. Davies: No, Sir, indeed not. The principles of the CAP have always been stated by us clearly to be matters that we would not seek to vary. The mechanisms are, in themselves, the methods by which the principles are applied. If the right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) will look a little further at the document he will see that it is provided that should there be arrangements covering commodity arrangements, or something in the nature of good conduct arrangements, there would be an adaptation of the mechanisms concerned. I direct the right hon. Gentleman's attention to that chapter in the document.

Mr. Body: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Prime Minister promised the House yesterday that the whole common agricultural policy would be under review and that he also said that, if necessary, the Council of Ministers would discuss this complete review in the autumn? Does my right hon. Friend not agree that it is not only necessary but essential for the Council of Ministers to discuss this matter, because it is within their power to bring to an end these import levies on food, which, in the case

of food that is not scarce in the world—and many foodstuffs are in that category—is artificially putting up the price of food in this country? Should not the British people have their point of view expressed to the Council of Ministers on this vital issue?

Mr. Davies: My hon. Friend is creating a certain amount of confusion between the document that is there to set the scene for multilateral negotiations and what may transpire in the Council of Ministers on its own initiative. They are different things. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was right in saying that the whole matter of the CAP is being and will be reviewed, and nothing prevents the Council from doing what it wishes in that respect, provided that there is agreement in the Council so to do. But that is different from setting the scene for multilateral negotiations, where the Community is seeking at the outset to set out the basis upon which it believes the negotiations should take place. The Community has not been unforthcoming in this matter. It has clearly postulated its desire to meet precisely the point made by my hon. Friend with regard to certain commodity agreements on an international scale, good conduct arrangements, and so on. My hon. Friend has perhaps not read the document through to its end.

Mr. Douglas: While acknowledging the importance of the CAP, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman to give the House an indication of the Government's view on a common energy policy? We have the Commission's views, and what we lack are the Government's views on such a policy.

Mr. Davies: The Government consider that there would be great value in a concerted view being developed within the Community to face the problem of the supply of energy in the coming years. The Government have taken that view in their discussions within the Council. The matter is still under discussion—it has not by any means come to an end—and we are waiting for the Commission to put forward further proposals, which we hope it will shortly do, to carry the matter further in the Council.

Mr. Biffen: Is it the hope and expectation of my right hon. Friend that the


GATT negotiations will result in a liberalisation of the CAP?

Mr. Davies: I think it would be the Government's wish that multilateral negotiations should result in a broad liberalisation of trading movement world wide in every field, and I do not exclude agriculture from that.

Mr. Richard: May we take it that when the Prime Minister said yesterday that the whole matter would be subject to review he meant that the Government's position is that they do not accept in perpetuity either the principles upon which the CAP is based or the machinery which the Commission has so far devised for the purpose of implementing the CAP? As one who is and always has been a pro-Marketeer, perhaps I may tell the right hon. Gentleman that being in favour of entry into the Common Market does not necessarily mean that one endorses every scrap of the CAP.

Mr. Davies: I believe that the work now being undertaken by the Commission in reviewing the CAP does not exclude anything. Principles, mechanisms and systems can be reviewed. I underline the fact that changes in those are not a matter of a desire of one country. They are clearly matters for discussion between all partners.

Mr. Jay: In view of the extraordinarily unsatisfactory nature of the answer to my Question, I beg to give notice that I shall arise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest opportunity.

Pakistan (Foreign Minister)

Mr. R. C. Mitchell: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will seek an early meeting with the Foreign Minister of Pakistan.

The Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Ai-fairs (Lord Balniel): President Bhutto, who is of course his own Foreign Minister, would always be welcome in this country, but there are as vet no firm arrangements for a visit. My right hon. Friend had a useful meeting with Mr. Aziz Ahmed, the Pakistan Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and Defence, during the CENTO meeting in Teheran last month.

Mr. Mitchell: When. the Foreign Secretary meets President Bhutto will lie make representations to him about the number of Bengalis in preventive detention in Pakistan, several of whom have British wives who are living in this country with their families?

Lord Balniel: The Indo-Bangladesh joint declaration of 17th April proposed, among other things, that those Bengalis in Pakistan who wished to return to Bangladesh should be allowed to do so. Although the Pakistan Government have expressed some reservations about the proposals in the joint declaration, exchanges of messages are taking place between the Indian and Pakistan Governments.

Mr. Wilkinson: May I remind my right hon Friend that the communiqué issued at the conclusion of the Teheran Conference reaffirmed support for Resolution No. 307, passed by the Security Council on 21st December 1971, which, inter alia. called for the return of Pakistani prisoners-of-war as part of an overall settlement in the sub-continent?

Lord Balniel: My hon. Friend will know that all the leaders in the sub-continent have made it plain that they do not want outside mediation and intend to settle their differences between themselves. I am sure that that is right, but we are ready to help if it appears that we can usefully do so at the wish of the parties concerned.

World Population Year

Mr. Dormand: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs who will represent the Government at the conference to be held as part of the World Population Year 1974.

Mr. Amery: A decision on the composition of the United Kingdom delegation will be made in due course.

Mr. Dormand: I wish the delegation well, but when it is appointed at this important conference will it not be placed in an embarrassing position, because the Government are refusing to adopt a population policy for this country, even when one is so necessary? May I further ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the Government will be offering greater assistance for the solution of the world's


population programme than the present totally inadequate amount that they give? If not, in what way do the Government hope to make an impact at the conference?

Mr. Amery: My right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council said—on, I think, 21st May—that the Government considered that time should be allowed for public opinion to crystallise before announcing their conclusions on the recommendations of the Population Panel.

United States and France (Mr. Brezhnev's Visit)

Mr. Cronin: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what discussions he has had with the United States and French Governments on matters of mutual concern following Mr. Brezhnev's recent visits to them.

Mr. Sproat: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what discussions he has had with President Nixon and President Pompidou about matters of mutual concern following the recent visits of Mr. Brezhnev to Washington and Paris.

Mr. Amery: We are in close touch with the United States and French Governments at all times and both Governments have kept us informed of their talks with Mr. Brezhnev.

Mr. Cronin: Will the right hon. Gentleman reassure the House that he is satisfied that no arrangements were made between President Nixon and Mr. Brezhnev that will be prejudicial to the security of Europe? With regard to the French visit, will the right hon. Gentleman say whether Mr. Brezhnev has had an invitation to visit London, or is it the policy of his Department that President Pompidou should be the spokesman for Europe?

Mr. Amery: The answer to the first part of the hon. Gentleman's question is that to the best of my knowledge that is the case. Mr. Brezhnev would always be welcome in this country. Mr. Gromyko and Mr. Kirillin have been here. Diplomatically, the ball is in the Soviet court, but we do not attach undue

importance to protocol in these matters. The way is open for reciprocal visits by one side or the other at any time that the Soviet Union is willing to make one.

Mr. Sproat: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that these visits increase the need for the closest co-ordination of Western tactics in dealing with the Soviet Union at the CESC talks at Helsinki? Does he not also agree that one of the best results to come out of Helsinki has been the unity of attitude between the Nine and NATO?

Mr. Amery: I am glad to say that there has been close co-ordination, both in NATO—which includes the United States—and the EEC, with the other eight European countries about the attitude that we should adopt at Helsinki, and I have every reason to believe that that co-operation will continue.

Mr. Frank Allaun: That was a remarkably evasive reply by the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Is the hon. Member asking a question?

Mr. Allaun: Was not that a remarkably evasive reply by the Minister? Surely the right hon. Gentleman does not expect Mr. Brezhnev or anybody else to come here without an invitation. Why is it that America, France and Germany can do it, and we cannot?

Mr. Amery: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not feel jealous about this. There are good reasons why the two super Powers should talk among themselves. We very much welcomed the visit of reconciliation marked by Mr. Brezhnev's visiting Bonn, and the relationship between France and Russia goes back to well before the First World War. I was merely saying that in ordinary diplomatic terms it is their turn to ask us. We have had two of their senior Ministers in this country, but we should not stand on protocol in these matters. There is close contact between the two Governments in both London and Moscow. At the appropriate moment I am sure that a visit could be arranged. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made a very positive intervention about the matter during a recent speech of the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan).

Heathrow (Security)

Mr. Kaufman: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs by what authority his Department instigated the relaxation of security measures at Heathrow Airport in the case of Sheikh Omar Saqqaf, Minister of State at the Saudi Arabian Foreign Office.

Lord Balniel: No action was taken by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in this case. Sheikh Omar Saqqaf spoke by telephone to a senior official of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, who explained the purpose of the security precautions and apologised for any inconvenience which they might have occasioned. Sheikh Omar Saqqaf did not ask that any official approach should be made to the authorities at Heathrow.

Mr. Kaufman: I accept that aircraft security arrangements can be waived reciprocally for diplomats by prior arrangement, but is it not a fact that in this case the waiving of these security arrangements took place as a capitulation to the most disgraceful threats of this petulant princeling, including the threat to have this aircraft detained at Jedda airport unless the airport authorities did as he demanded? Remembering that the Khartoum massacre took place with arms smuggled into the Saudi Arabian Embassy, ought not these security restrictions to be most stringently maintained?

Lord Balniel: In general, the Government believe that it is unavoidable and right to ask even the most distinguished passengers in commercial aircraft—both in their own interests and in the interests of all passengers in the aircraft—to submit themselves to security checks. British Ministers are doing so when they travel. But the implementation, and the judgment as to how the security checks should be implemented, is a matter for the decision of the individual airlines.

Mr. Sydney Chapman: Does my right hon. Friend agree that while no one should be above any rules, regulations or laws, there is a case for tact and discretion being used by the authorities at the airport, whether in relation to a person who happens to be a sheikh of an oil kingdom or, on the other hand, a woman who, perhaps, is pregnant?

Lord Balniel: Yes. I feel that tact and discretion should be exercised, and my impression is that, generally, this is the practice of individual airlines. But I hold to the view that Ministers and other dignitaries should be aware of the grave dangers that now exist on the airlines and should be prepared wherever possible to submit themselves to this kind of search.

Rhodesia

Mr. Edward Taylor: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will take a new initiative towards settling the dispute with Rhodesia.

Mr. Wall: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on recent developments in Rhodesia.

Lord Balniel: I have nothing to add to what my right hon. Friend told the House on 27th June.

Mr. Taylor: As the chances of an agreed settlement with Rhodesia now appear to be less bright that at any time since 1965, will my right hon. Friend make it quite clear that the Government do not have a closed mind about the indefinite continuation of sanctions?

Lord Balniel: My hon. Friend takes a very pessimistic view about the situation—and, indeed, the prospects are not all that good. But as my right hon. Friend told the House very recently, there are some signs that the two sides are increasingly aware of the desirability of reaching a settlement. We should like to consider the position further in relation to the point made by my hon. Friend. We may be making a statement before the Summer Recess.

Mr. Guy Barnett: As this matter was discussed by the Prime Minister and General Gowon, does the right hon. Gentleman see the opportunity of an initiative being taken by his Government and, perhaps, by other Governments at the Heads of Governments Conference in Ottawa, with a view to its being a Commonwealth matter?

Lord Balniel: This matter must now be settled by the peoples within Rhodesia. No other agreement would be stable in


the long term. We look to the people of Rhodesia themselves to reach agreement.

Mr. Wall: Is it not a fact that the present demands by Bishop Muzorewa's ANC for parity now and majority rule in the very near future are well outside the settlement terms negotiated and will, therefore, make a settlement more difficult and increase the drift towards South Africa?

Lord Balniel: The longer the delay that occurs before reaching agreement and a settlement, the greater are the dangers that face all peoples in Rhodesia.

Mr. Fernyhough: What was the purpose of the recent secret visit by top Foreign Office diplomats, which had suddenly to be made public? Was the visit really necessary? Did it serve any purpose? In view of Mr. Smith's subsequent remarks, is it not about time that we did everything we could further to strengthen the sanctions that we are imposing against Rhodesia?

Lord Balniel: I do not accept the premise on which the hon. Gentleman's question is based. The purpose of the visit was to maintain contact with all sections of Rhodesian opinion, in accordance with our policy since the Pearce Report, which has general support. The visit was designed to obtain an up-to-date assessment of the situation there, and so that Sir Dennis Greenhill could explain to Mr. Smith and Bishop Muzorewa the views of Her Majesty's Government. Sir Dennis was not recalled prematurely, and there was no subterfuge about the visit.

Mr. Molloy: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent representations he has had from non-governmental bodies in Rhodesia regarding a return to legal government.

Lord Balniel: During his recent visit to Rhodesia, Sir Denis Greenhill and the two officials accompanying him saw a number of prominent Europeans and Africans, including members of non-government bodies, and heard their views. Many people of both races were concerned to see a return to legality through discussions between the two sides.

Mr. Molloy: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are now people

of all races, black and white, who urgently want Smith off their backs? As the regime is illegal and there are people of all races who wish to return to legality, should not the Government now declare that they support those people and promise that they will give them all the aid that they are required to give to see that Rhodesia returns to the status it held before the illegal thieving by Smith and his associates'?

Lord Balniel: If I understand the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question aright, I can certainly assure him that we want to see a return to legality.

Mr. Dykes: In spite of the excessive drama of the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Molloy), is it not now clear beyond all doubt that Mr. Smith is leading Rhodesia to a disastrous situation? Is it not long overdue that the British Government made that clear beyond all doubt to Mr. Smith and his colleagues?

Lord Balniel: I noticed with satisfaction one aspect of Mr. Smith's speech recently, namely, that Rhodesians must get together to find a solution to their own problems. That is what we have been urging for a very long time.

Religious Persecution

Mr. Biggs-Davison: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether Her Majesty's Government will submit to the United Nations Economic and Social Council a programme for a decade of action against religious persecution.

Mr. Amery: Her Majesty's Government have no plans to submit such a programme to the Economic and Social Council.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: Is it not the case that in, perhaps, half the world Christianity, Jewry and Islam are persecuted by Powers that lead the movement in the United Nations and elsewhere against apartheid and, indeed, against the non-racial policy of Portugal? Should not our attention and the attention of the United Nations to human rights be free from these double standards'?

Mr. Amery: I am glad to say that the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations has produced a draft declaration


and a draft convention on religious intolerance, and both items are included in the provisional agenda for the next session of the General Assembly. We shall then give our support, wherever possible, to those drafts.

Mr. Heffer: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that some of us would like to see some hon. Members on the Government side refrain from double standards? Hon. Members of the Opposition have opposed Russian policy in Czechoslovakia and, equally, American policy in Vietnam, and that should be supported on both sides of the House and not by the sort of question that is an indication of the double standards of some hon. Members.

Mr. Amery: I hope that nothing that the hon. Gentleman said implied that he was supporting Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia.

Mr. Heffer: The right hon. Gentleman knows that I was not. That is a typical example of double standards.

Mr. Fell: May I ask my right hon. Friend why it was not possible for him to answer my hon. Friend who posed the Question with the words "Yes, Sir"?

Mr. Amery: For the simple reason that we think that a declaration passed by the United Nations and a convention would come better, before calling for a "decade". We are not very sure that these decades—

Mr. Fell: Ten years.

Mr. Amery: —are all that useful. We should like to see the passing of a draft declaration and draft convention on religious intolerance.

Law of the Sea Conference

Mr. Peter Archer: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when he anticipates making public the proposals of Her Majesty's Government for the Law of the Sea Conference of 1974.

Mr. Amery: As I explained to the House last Thursday, Her Majesty's Government have already expressed views on the major topics with which the conference will be dealing. These are contained in statements made by the British delegation to the United Nations

Sea Bed Committee, which is preparing for the conference.
Summaries of those statements are in the Library of the House.
I have nothing to add to them.

Mr. Archer: As the United Nations has already recognised that the wealth of the seas is the common heritage of mankind, will it not be a tragedy if the great bulk of that wealth is now appropriated by the most powerful, the best situated and technologically the most advanced countries? Will the Government at least say that an enclosure movement is not a method of enforcing law and order but its negation?

Mr. Amery: A comprehensive solution can emerge only through negotiation at the conference itself. I am sure that the hon. and learned Gentleman will be the first to agree that it would be unwise to reveal all our hand before the negotiations have begun, when other countries have not done so.

Mr. W. H. K. Baker: What machinery is available within my right hon. Friend's office to receive representations on this subject? Will he assure us that any representations made to the office will be carefully borne in mind, from whatever source they come? I have in mind, of course, the fishing industry.

Mr. Amery: There is no problem about making representations to the Government. They can be made to the Foreign Office, or, where fishing interests are concerned, to the Ministry of Agriculture, or, where industrial underwater economic interests are concerned, to the DTI.

French Nuclear Tests

Mr. Dalyell: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what reports he has received from the two British Government representatives on Pitcairn Island about the monitoring of French nuclear tests; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Amery: Two RAF technicians were landed on Pitcairn Island in the middle of May. They are now carrying out routine background radiological observations. They will thus be in a position to detect any local effects of nuclear explosions which may reach Pitcairn.

Mr. Dalyell: In particular, what facilities are available to these two RAF technicians for monitoring the short-lived iodine 131?

Mr. Amery: I should want notice of the detailed point, but I understand—

Mr. Dalyell: It is not a detailed point.

Mr. Amery: I understand that they are very well equipped to monitor all the likely radioactive consequences.

Mr. Dalyell: What does the right hon. Gentleman mean by "well equipped"?

Mr. Amery: Adequately equipped, well equipped. We have been doing this for a number of years. The hon. Member took me to task the other day as a Leonardo da Vinci, but he seems a one-man laboratory in these matters. I ask him to believe that we take these matters seriously. I would only add that I was glad to see that, in spite of the Chinese tests, the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) and the right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) attended the Chinese acrobatics last night and that environmental considerations did not interfere with their study of the acrobatic art of which they stand in great need.

Sir G. Nabarro: Returning to Pitcairn Island, is my right hon. Friend aware that in answer to my questions the Prime Minister has persisted indignantly in saying that the allegations about radioactive material leading to the reduction of flora and fauna to negligible proportions on the island were not true, that no radioactive presence had been found on the island, and that it was not until last May, as a result of the persistence of my questions, that he put these two observers on Pitcairn Island? Will my right hon. Friend make quite sure that this time evidence is placed in the Library as to the true position about radioactive fallout as a result of the French explosions?

Mr. Amery: The latest information available to me confirms what the Prime Minister said. It appears that the verdure on Pitcairn Island is lusher than usual this year. It is not our practice to produce day-to-day running commentaries on what the technicians on Pitcairn report, but, as on previous occasions, I shall ensure that, if he wishes, my hon.
Friend is kept informed, towards the end of the year, of their general conclusions.

Mr. Goronwy Roberts: May I put to the right hon. Gentleman a point that he may wish to answer later? How relevant and how available is the evidence and knowledge gained by the Indian monitoring system for our own purposes of deciding how serious or how innocuous these tests will prove to be?

Mr. Amery: I should want notice of that question. I shall certainly write to the right hon. Gentleman.

St. Helena

Mr. Carter: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he is now in a position to make a statement on the future of St. Helena.

Lord Balniel: The St. Helena development adviser hopes to return to London on 1st August with his proposals. They will be studied urgently and I shall inform the hon. Gentleman of the outcome.

Mr. Carter: I thank the Minister for that reply. However, will he take note of the fact that a large percentage of the families on this island live on less than £3 a week for the whole family? In view of the fact that these are all British citizens, will he take immediate steps, before the report is published, to relieve the poverty and appalling conditions in which these people live?

Lord Balniel: This is a very important matter and the development adviser is giving priority to investigating this aspect of life in St. Helena. I have asked the Governor to consult the development adviser as to the possibility of producing an interim report on the desirability of such measures affecting the poorest section of the community there.

Sir F. Bennett: If there is such an interim report, will my right hon. Friend do his best to ensure that it contains urgent consideration of the need for some sort of airstrip or airport? This, above all else, is what the island needs if it is to survive.

Lord Balniel: The report will of course be studied urgently. Two members of the Civil Aviation Authority are advising on the feasibility of an airfield, but there


are as yet no firm proposals to build an airfield.

Mr. Haselhurst: Will my right hon. Friend consider putting some pressure on the Overseas Development Administration to see whether some funds can be found urgently to help the people of St. Helena? I fully endorse the remarks of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. Carter) about the present standard of living there. Will my right hon. Friend give this urgent consideration in advance of any report by the development adviser?

Lord Balniel: I think that the step that I have taken, of asking for an interim report, is the correct one in the circumstances. But the question of the level of aid to St. Helena must await the publication of that report. Before then, it would be wrong to act.

Portugal (Duke of Edinburgh's Visit)

Mr. Terry Davis: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs why his Department advised the amendment of a speech which the Duke of Edinburgh intended to make during his recent visit to Portugal.

Mr. Amery: No problems arose in connection with the drafting of this speech that needed reference to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Mr. Davis: Will the Minister answer the Question? Did the British Embassy withdraw the advance text of a speech that the Duke of Edinburgh was going to make, and, if so, why?

Mr. Amery: I do not think that the hon. Member quite understands what happened. It is quite normal. I do not know whether it happens to him, but it often happens to me. [Laughter.] Any speech goes through several drafts, and in the course of preparation of the speech, the draft alters. This is all that happened. Quite normally, in the course of preparing his speech, the Duke of Edinburgh consulted the ambassador about it and made certain changes.

Hon. Members: Why?

Mr. Biggs-Davison: Can my right lion. Friend answer this question? Why should British Members of Parliament be so

eager to make trouble for an alliance vital to the security of the West in this historic anniversary year?

Mr. Amery: I join my hon. Friend in wondering why. It seems to me very strange.

Mr. Judd: Does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that the gravest charge against the Foreign Office is that it put the Duke of Edinburgh in the humiliating position of having, by implication, to condone Portugal's cruelly repressive policy in Africa?

Mr. Amery: Any changes that were made were made by the Duke of Edinburgh himself. They were not made at the request of the Portuguese.

United States Secretary of State

Mr. Sydney Chapman: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when he next intends to hold official talks with the United States of America Secretary of State.

Mr. Amery: My right hon. Friend will be seeing the United States Secretary of State at the first stage of the Helsinki meeting this week.

Mr. Chapman: As the Helsinki conference is witnessing a new mood of relations between the European countries, does not my right hon. Friend agree that it might be appropriate, on this American Independence Day, to seek to redefine our relations with the United States, particularly in matters of trade agreements, while, of course, ensuring that those relations remain close and cordial?

Mr. Amery: Relations between this country and the European Community and the United States are very close and very good in trade, monetary and defence matters. We want to consider very carefully before we redefine our relations, but we fully accept the proposition put forward by Dr. Kissinger that we must see whether there is any cause to redefine them.

Mr. McBride: In view of the great United States interest in the matter, when the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary meets the American Secretary of State will he seek to erect safeguards against the disruption of United States commodity


markets occasioned by the trading policies of the EEC? Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that that is important, in view of the implications of the disruption of those markets on prices prevailing in Britain?

Mr. Amery: If the hon. Gentleman is referring to commodity markets in terms of agricultural produce, which I understand him to be, perhaps he will recall that the President has restricted the export of agricultural produce from the United States.

Foreign Governments (Diplomatic Recognition)

Mr. Whitehead: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will reconsider the criteria of recognition by Her Majesty's Government to be applied in the case of foreign countries changing their forms of government.

Mr. Amery: No, Sir.

Mr. Whitehead: As, in a moment of unaccustomed clarity, the Greek regime was described as illegal by the Minister's right hon. Friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary, and in view of today's news of further arrests in Athens, including the arrest of the former Foreign Minister, Mr. Averoff, will the right hon. Gentleman now describe the regime as what it is, a guttersnipe crew of smalltime fascists whom we should not be recognising? Should not we reconsider the recognition that we so hastily gave after the illegal deposition of King Constantine?

Mr. Amery: The present Government, like the previous Government, have based their criteria for recognition—

Mr. Whitehead: It does not enjoy support.

Mr. Amery: —on whether a Government can be held to enjoy, with a reasonable prospect of permanency, the obedience of the mass of the population and the effective control of much the greater part of the territory. Those have been the criteria applied by the Attlee Government and every other Government since the war. I think that they apply to the present Government in Athens,

whatever view the hon. Gentleman wants to take.

Sir F. Bennett: When my right hon. Friend referred to his criteria I thought I heard a murmur from the Opposition benches of "It does not enjoy majority support". Was the hon. Gentleman who said that talking about Czechoslovakia or Greece?

Hon, Members: Both.

Mr. Amery: I am advised—I was not in the Chamber at the time—that the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) suggested in an intervention last week that commanding support should be a criterion, but if that were the case there would be precious few Governments that we should be able to recognise.

Mr. Jay: Can the Minister, who is obviously very well informed, tell us what Governments now in existence the present Government have not recognised?

Mr. Amery: As the right hon. Gentleman may know—though he may not have been in the House when we discussed the matter on Thursday—we have not yet recognised the North Vietnamese Government, because it has been an established policy not to recognise Governments in divided countries, but we are moving towards it and as soon as certain criteria have been met I dare say we shall be able to consummate it.

Mr. Woodhouse: Does not my right hon. Friend appreciate that, whatever may be the intention of Her Majesty's Government, the premature recognition of the Greek Republic will be universally recognised as a stamp of approval, and that that impression will be ruthlessly exploited during the campaign leading up to the plebiscite later this month? Would not it have been better and fairer at least to wait until the plebiscite was over? What will be the Government's position if. as we all hope—including, no doubt, Her Majesty's Government—the plebiscite registers a negative vote?

Mr. Amery: I do not think that our recognition was premature, in accordance with the criteria, which I have explained. As my hon. Friend knows very well, the Greeks are a very sophisticated people


They have a long experience of relations with us, and they will know exactly the grounds on which we have decided to recognise the Government there. The second part of my hon. Friend's question is hypothetical.

Family Passports

Miss Fookes: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will undertake to convene an international passport conference with a view to abolishing family passports.

Mr. William Hamilton: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will seek to initiate the convening of an international conference on the question of family passports and their validity.

Lord Balniel: In view of the fact that a large number of married couples are glad to take advantage of this facility, which enables them to travel together without the expense of obtaining separate passports, we could not justify initiating international action to abolish the family passport.

Miss Fookes: Will my right lion. Friend explain in simple English how he reconciles the fact that a wife may not travel alone on the passport with the Government's pledge that they will shortly introduce anti-discrimination legislation of their own?

Lord Balniel: There is a misconception about the matter. The family passport is an additional service over and above the individual right to own a passport. It works very well, and its removal would hurt families financially. The passports are extremely popular. If there had to be two separate passports there would be an additional cost of £5 to each family that at present goes on holiday on the family passport.

Mr. Hamilton: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that that does not necessarily follow? Does he not realise that the proposition that the head of the family alone should be able to use the passport himself, or, in the case of a widow, herself, was a German proposal made 47 years ago, and that social attitudes have changed since then? Why are the Government so reluctant to try to convene another conference on the

matter to remedy this gross injustice, which is indefensible in present circumstances?

Lord Balniel: The hon. Gentleman's language exaggerates the situation. The passport is a free service, which is extremely popular with families, as it reduces the cost of family holidays. There is no need to call an international conference to abolish it. We could abolish it unilaterally without a conference.

Mr. Tapsell: I am not sure that my right hon. Friend is addressing his mind to the point that is being raised. There is a widespread feeling in this country and most other countries that the present position is an out-dated anomaly, and that passports should be issued equally to a woman or to a man. The fact that they are issued only to the male head of the family causes disquiet.

Lord Balniel: I appreciate that, but the family passport is something we grant over and above the usual passport facilities, and there is no obligation on any man or woman to take it. I appreciate my hon. Friend's point, but if his suggestion were adopted it is possible that the passport would not be acceptable to other countries, and the family passport, as such, would have to be withdrawn.

Mr. Richard: The right hon. Gentleman and the Government have gone round in a circle. When the matter was first raised by the hon. Member for Merton and Morden (Miss Fookes), the original point she made was: "Why should not a wife be entitled to use a family passport in exactly the same way as a husband?" The right hon. Gentleman will remember the answer that was then given, namely, that other countries might not accept it. The hon. Lady then said, "What have we to do to make other countries accept it?". She was then told—the right hon. Gentleman will remember this—that an international conference would have to be convened to persuade other countries of a wife's right to use a family passport. She is now asking for such a conference to be held and the Government are now saying, "No". Are not the Government getting themselves into a ludicrous position?

Lord Balniel: We do not know whether we shall get agreement. That is one aspect.

Dame Irene Ward: My right hon. Friend seems to be a bit muddled. Would not it be a good idea if the Government asked the Women's Commission to examine the matter? The commission is composed of all parties and all sorts of women. Let us see what we can do after we have received the commission's advice. The present situation described by my right hon. Friend seems unduly muddled. Does he agree that we should take proper action and really get to grips with the matter? Perhaps the Government will then be able to act properly.

Lord Baltiel: I am prepared to take the advice of my hon. Friend, the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward). I am prepared to listen to the opinions of various organisations. However, the House must take account of the fact that it is the wish of many families that these passports should be issued. I shall willingly consider the point that has been put forward by my hon. Friend.

Mr. Loughlin: Will the right hon. Gentleman try to understand that the argument is not that the family passport is unpopular? The argument is that it should be possible for a wife to use a family passport. Is it absolutely necessary to have a convention simply to get agreement with other countries to accept that a woman can travel on a family passport without her husband? Would it not be possible to get in touch with other Governments and to determine whether they will accept that position?

Lord Balniel: We are making inquiries with other Governments about this matter.

Mr. Hamilton: In view of the utter confusion of Ministers of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office throughout this Question Time I shall seek to raise several subjects on the Adjournment.

EEC (Commonwealth Consultations)

Mr. Judd: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether he will make a statement on his consultations with Commonwealth countries since 1st January 1973 concern-

ing the implications for them of British entry to the EEC.

Mr. John Davies: While it is, of course, for the Commonwealth countries concerned to decide what sort of relations they wish to pursue with the European Communities, these matters are the subject of regular consultation between those countries and ourselves.

Mr. Judd: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that at the time of British entry to the EEC on 1st January there was a large range of unresolved problems concerning our obligations to Commonwealth countries? Further, does he agree that those countries were advised that if they would bear with us after entry we would pursue their interests with all the vigour at our disposal? Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that there are grave misgivings within the Commonwealth about the degree of vigour with which those interests have been pursued? Would it not be helpful, in view of all the critical negotiations concerning Yaounde and other matters coming up this summer, to issue a White Paper detailing precisely how the Government have been pursuing Commonwealth interests within the context of the EEC?

Mr. Davies: I must emphasise that in the case of all the relationships to which the hon. Gentleman refers there is a need for the countries concerned to pursue their interests as they see them themselves. It is for Her Majesty's Government to consult with them, and where possible, to give them every support in their interests. That is what we have done. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Overseas Development, for instance, has made a veritable pilgrimage around the Commonwealth countries in Africa seeking and finding out their interests, deciding how best their interests can be catered for, and seeking to do so. The results to date are by no means unsatisfactory.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I must admit to an error. I should not have called the hon. Member for Portsmouth, West (Mr. Judd). Questions relating to overseas aid should begin not later than 3.20 p.m. I was carried away by the excitement of Questions Nos. 16 and 17. Mr. Roderick.

Sahelian Africa (Drought)

Mr. Roderick: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what plans he has for giving special help to the drought stricken areas south of the Sahara.

Mr. Frank Allaun: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on progress in bringing relief to the drought stricken areas of the Sahara.

The Minister for Overseas Development (Mr. Richard Wood): I refer hon. Members to the replies I gave to the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) on 13th June and to the hon. Member for Salford, East (Mr. Frank Allaun) on 20th June. A Royal Air Force reconnaissance team is in West Africa looking into the need for more aircraft to move food. This morning I had a report from the team leader in Dakar which shows that, with one exception, enough aircraft are already available; but there is a need to move food from Dakar to Bamako, in Mali. We intend to meet this need, provided the Government of Senegal agree. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence has confirmed that RAF Hercules aircraft are available for this task.

Mr. Roderick: I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. It has been felt for some time that we have not been acting as urgently as we might in dealing with this problem. Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us how many aircraft we have available for use, how many we are likely to put at the disposal of the authorities, and when we shall put them at their disposal?

Mr. Wood: If the necessary formalities can be completed, I hope that the aircraft will be in the area before this weekend. There are three Hercules aircraft standing by at quite short notice and they will go to the area concerned. I think that they will be sufficient to carry out the task that has been identified for them. If they are not sufficient, my right hon. Friend has promised to consider the needs in the light of what we find after the aircraft begin their operations.

Mr. Allaun: I appreciate the answer that the right hon. Gentleman has given. However, why is it that whereas Belgium

has had three Hercules aircraft out there for a month and America has had four aircraft, we have not yet sent one? As the reconnaissance team went nearly a fortnight ago, what has held up, and what is holding up, the use of aircraft, particularly when the rains have begun to make the roads impassable and have put 2 million people in extreme danger?

Mr. Wood: I think that the hon. Gentleman is making difficulties that do not exist. I told him a few days ago that a team was going out. The team reported only this morning that there is this need. I have decided that the need should be met, and the aircraft will be there within two or three days.

Mr. Pavitt: In this instance has the special machinery of the United Nations 24-hour relief and stockpiling, which was agreed two years ago, been in use? If not, will the right hon. Gentleman make inquiries about that?

Mr. Wood: The problem is largely one of moving food from certain points to other points in the area. That is a need which the team went out to identify. It found that there is the need that I mentioned in my answer, and that need will be met.

South America (Aid)

Mr. Norman Lamont: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether he will increase the amount of aid granted to South American countries.

Mr. Wood: I am at present providing for steadily increasing sums, both for capital aid loans and for technical assistance.

Mr. Lamont: Although some of these countries are now developing an industrial base, is it not the case that parts of the continent still have some of the worst illiteracy and some of the lowest per capita incomes in the world, and that in the past they have received a disproportionately small part of British aid? Will the right hon. Gentleman ensure that in future such countries, as well as those countries traditionally associated with Great Britain, receive a growing part of the British aid programme?

Mr. Wood: It is because of the recognition of the great needs in South


America, and the opportunities for export which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister recently pointed out, that I have given my hon. Friend that answer.

Mrs. Hart: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us roughly how the new aid provision to Latin America is being distributed? I understand that some is likely to go to Brazil, but is any likely to go to Chile, where enormous steps are being taken to benefit the mass of the people? Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us something about the tremendous debt problems, and the efforts to help that the British Government are likely to make?

Mr. Wood: We have programmes in many countries in Latin America some, naturally, larger than others. I shall have to ask the right hon. Lady to put down a detailed question, because I should hate to give her the wrong information, as I may do if I try to answer her without notice.

INTERNATIONAL COMPUTERS (HOLDINGS) LIMITED

The Minister for Industrial Development (Mr. Christopher Chataway): The House will recall that on 3rd July 1972 I affirmed the Government's belief that the capability to develop, manufacture and market computer systems which International Computers (Holdings) Ltd. (ICL) represents should be retained in this country. To further these objectives, I announced Government support of £14·2 million to maintain the momentum of ICL's research and development programme up to September 1973.
The Select Committee on Science and Technology has continued to draw attention to the scale of assistance provided by other Governments to ICL's overseas competitors and has argued for comparable support, mainly in the field of research and development. Under its new management, ICL has made excellent progress. The company faces a period when research and development expenditure in developing its new range of computers will be very large in relation to the total size of the undertaking, and Government support has, therefore, been under consideration for the period to 1976.
During this period, apart from the Government assistance towards the cost of research and development which has been proposed, ICL expects to be able to finance its growing business from its own resources. However, should the requirements of the business exceed expectations during this period and additional funds be needed, GEC and Plessey, in their capacity as principal shareholders of the company, have undertaken to procure the raising of additional capital by the shareholders of ICL up to an amount of £15 million, provided they are satisfied it will contribute towards ICL's development as a profitable company.
The Government believe that, against this background, further support of ICL, of the launching aid type, is justified. The Government have agreed to provide a further £25·8 million in support of the company's research and development programme from October this year until September 1976, making a total of £40 million in all. The basis for these arrangements with the company and the principal shareholders is that ICL's forward plans and forecasts indicate that no further financial assistance will be required or sought from the Government after 1976.
These plans and forecasts are based on ICL's stated policy of a high degree of retention of earnings. This implies a minimal distribution by way of dividends; however, should circumstances change and the company decide that its position justifies the recommendation of a higher dividend, the Government will be notified and will have the right to vary the arrangements for further research and development support in the event that such higher dividend is paid.
As is normal with launching aid of this type, arrangements have been agreed with the company for the recovery of this £25·8 million, together with the £14·2 million I announced in July last year. These involve the payment to the Government over a 7-year period commencing in the company year 1977–78—or a lesser period if full recovery as a discounted cash flow rate of return of 10 per cent. proves possible more quickly—of any profits before tax earned in excess of 7½ per cent. of turnover up to a maximum of 25 per cent. of the profit before tax earned in each year.
A detailed monitoring system has been agreed with the company, under which arrangements will continue for the regular provision by the company of full information on the progress of the R and D programme and on the company's financial and commercial progress and expectations.
I have ha discussions with my French and German colleagues about the importance of creating a stronger European industry. The company is well aware of the opportunities and is involved in discussions with European companies. The Government will encourage any European association that ICL decides to be in its commercial interests.

Mr. Bishop: The House will welcome the Government's statement on the computer industry which demonstrates the rôle of public enterprise in the maintenance of vital industries.
As there has been an apparent delay in the making of the statement, is the Minister satisfied that the difficulties involved have been resolved? In view of the fact that Plessey has about 20 per cent. of the stock, GEC 19 per cent., and the Government only 10·49 per cent., does he think that adequate support is being given by the other shareholders?
Does the Minister think that for a total investment of public money amounting to about £40 million in three years a Government participation in ICL of only 10 per cent. is justified? What Government representation will be on the board? Will Mr. Duckworth continue to be the Government representative?
In considering the return on public investment, on the basis of last year's announcement may we expect that the royalties on the sales or the levy on profits will continue?
Although we welcome European collaboration, is the Minister satisfied that our interest is protected? As the Select Committee on Science and Technology made about 20 recommendations on the computer industry, will the Minister make representation to his right hon. Friend that the House should have a detailed debate on the future of this important industry?

Mr. Chataway: I will certainly take note of what the hon. Gentleman said

at the end of his remarks. It is true that the level of support which the Government are here proposing is a great deal lower than that recommended by the Select Committee, but the House will note the strength of the company and the progress that has been made in the past year.
It is perhaps wrong to draw analogies with other European companies. Other European companies are receiving greater support than that which is proposed for ICL, but ICL can undoubtedly claim to be the strongest indigenous computer company in Western Europe.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned delays. As he will realise, this support is from September of this year, so the announcement is made in good time, and there are no outstanding difficulties.
The recovery arrangements are more stringent than those that have prevailed on previous occasions. They give the taxpayer the opportunity of a full return on the money expended, and I believe that the strength of the company justifies recovery arrangements of this type.
The Government retain the right to appoint a board member. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is right to encourage the company in collaborative association with other European countries if it believes it to be in its commercial interest.

Mr. Skeet: Does the Minister accept that the amount which has been made available to ICL is equivalent to that which has been made available to CII and Nixdorf in Germany, or is it less? Why did not the Minister make available the company's interim report so that we could know the profitability basis of the company and whether it would be practicable to raise all the money on the open market?

Mr. Chataway: My hon. Friend will know that there is no computer company outside the United States which at the present stage of development is able to raise all its capital from the market. A decision has to be taken by European Governments whether they wish to have an indigenous computer capability.
My hon. Friend is right in suggesting that the level of support given by the German and French Governments is higher than that proposed by the British


Government for ICL, but the determining factor here must surely be the needs of the company and its strength.

Mr. Golding: Is the Minister aware that this announcement will be welcomed in North Staffordshire where the new range is being tested? Does he agree that Government grants are higher not only in France and Germany but also in Japan and the United States? Against that background, does he believe that Government aid can end by 1976 if the British computer industry is to compete with America and Japan?

Mr. Chataway: The arrangements I have announced follow a period of intensive consultation with the company and major shareholders. It is the belief of the major shareholders and of the company on the basis of its latest forecasts that this is the level of aid that will he required to launch the new range and that the company will be profitable—it is already profitable—without further Government support from 1976.

Mr. Powell: Will any specific parliamentary proceedings be necessary to authorise these further disbursements?

Mr. Chataway: No, Sir. This support will be given under the Science and Technology Act.

Mr. Kaufman: Bearing in mind that in Manchester today unemployment is 32 per cent. higher than it was three years ago, is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in my constituency, where ICL West Gorton is situated and where it is a most important part of the employment provision, his statement will be regarded as no more than what is needed? Will he guarantee to my constituents, who regard this matter as extremely important, that the Government will continue to give priority to ICL in the purchase of computers, that all the work force employed at West Gorton will continue to have guaranteed employment and that all further aid required will be forthcoming?

Mr. Chataway: Matters of employment are for the company to decide but, clearly, the intention of the Government, as of the company, is that these arrangements should enable the company to prosper and expand. I have spelt out the situation about support and given the limits of that support. I am grateful

to the hon. Gentleman for what I took to be somewhat grudging approval.

Mr. Biffen: Which would my hon. Friend prefer—support from the hon. Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman) or scepticism from myself? May I ask my right hon. Friend—since this is to be done through the Science and Technology Act rather than the Industry Act and therefore, parliamentary approval will not be specifically sought—whether he will none the less make representations to the Leader of the House to ensure that there is an early debate on this subject since many will conclude that public expenditure of this dimension on high technology implies a criterion of economic and social judgment which we shall wish to contest? Can he say whether the new generation of computers for which this money is primarily required is essentially for military and defensive purposes or for commercial use?

Mr. Chataway: These computers are for commercial and defence use. My hon. Friend posed me a difficult choice at the outset of his remarks and I am not sure that I can decide between the alternatives. I will ensure that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House knows of my hon. Friend's remarks about a debate. As to the question of the options which the Government have, the House will want to consider, as the Select Committee did in great detail over some months, whether it would be right to allow total control of the computer industry to be in American hands. There is clearly a choice for Britain and Western Europe; it is whether they wish to have a British or European capabality in computers. The majority of the House might conclude, as did the Select Committee, that it would be reckless for Europe to opt out of this area in which the Americans have had a flying start.

Mr. Pardoe: Will the right hon. Gentleman be a little less mealy-mouthed and call a subsidy a subsidy? Will he confirm that the Government are a shareholder and will he say why the Government have not taken equity participation to inject this money into the company? Can he say what the Government will do in the event of the company needing more funds than he has announced and in the event of GEC and Plessey failing to be


satisfied with the company's profitable development?

Mr. Chataway: The hon. Gentleman might recognise that we have the strongest computer company in Europe and that the kind of questions he asks are not designed to bring out its competitive strength. If he wants to call the launching aid given by virtually every Government to a computer industry at this stage of its development a subsidy he is at liberty to do so. I have told the House the limits of the support which the Government are prepared to make available.

Mr. Kilfedder: While I welcome the support which my right hon. Friend has announced for ICL, may I ask whether he would accept that it is a bizarre situation that recently the Government refused to accede to my request that they should force a Belfast shipyard, largely Government-owned and heavily financed from taxpayers' money, to purchase ICL computer equipment in preference to an American system? Is this not wrong?

Mr. Chataway: It must be for those purchasing computers to make their own arrangements as to which computer will best serve their needs. In the public sec-

tor here, as in the public sector in France and Germany, a measure of home preference is given.

Mr. Joel Barnett: While I welcome the decision to maintain a British computer industry, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he would not agree that this is a shocking way to use taxpayers' money—to spend £40 million when there is only a £41 million market capitalisation—rather than taking over the company or at least controlling it?

Mr. Chataway: The hon. Gentleman will notice that there is no successful computer company in Western Europe or North America which is nationalised. If nationalisation is his answer to success in a highly competitive area, I am bound to say that it is not the Government's. As for the sum of £40 million over a five-year period, he will note that the Select Committee recommended total support for the European computer industry of £50 million a year.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We have a short debate ahead and I already know of 25 hon. Members who wish to catch my eye on the railways debate. We must get on.

SECURITY INDUSTRY LICENSING BILL

3.48 p.m.

Mr. Norman Fowler: Mr. Norman Fowler (Nottingham, South): I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for the licensing of private security firms, of firms which manufacture, supply and fit security equipment, and of private detectives.

During the last 20 years crime in Britain has increased. One of the results of that increase has been the development in this country of a private security industry which, it is now estimated, employs about 40,000 staff. It is important that we understand why this figure is likely to increase.

In presenting his report last month, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Robert Mark, spelt out what had been the implication of police policy for some time; namely, that the police must have priorities in investigating crime. The public will expect them to deal with the most serious forms of crime—crimes of violence and armed robbery—but necessarily, police strengths being what they are, other crimes will not get the same attention. It does not necessarily follow from this that these are the trivial crimes. Burglary often has a profound effect upon the individual householder who suffers from it. Yet the facts have to be faced. In London last year there were no fewer than 76,000 burglaries, and it is almost inconceivable that the Metropoltian Police can ever reach the strength where that vast number of crimes can be investigated properly.

We may regard this situation with some regret, but we must also learn the lessons of it. One of those lessons is that the public and business must take better care of their own property. We must all learn to take crime prevention more seriously. If that is the case the private security industry will have an increasingly important part to play. This part should be encouraged, and the intention of the Bill is to encourage good security firms and to ensure high standards. However, it also follows that if we are to encourage the good firms we should try to eliminate the bad ones and the dubious individuals who undoubtedly operate in this area.

I have two examples of what I mean by the bad firms. There are the ineffi-

cient firms like the alarm company which was employed by a firm to fit a window alarm. The alarm was so useless that when the very thing happened that it was supposed to guard against and the window was broken into the alarm was not activated. Later tests showed that whole troops of burglars could have processed through without the alarm system being activated. When the company which was burgled tried to sue the alarm company it found itself confronted by one of those exclusion clauses which exclude everything, including gross incompentence.

But the most serious of all aspects of this industry is that there are firms which employ staff with known and serious criminal records. The television programme "This Week" did a recent broadcast on the security industry. It found in Manchester a company run by a man who admitted that he had twice been convicted of grievous bodily harm and who employed four or five staff with criminal records, including one who had served sentences of three and five years for burglary and receiving. Additional evidence of this unfortunate and highly regrettable trend was revealed when the representatives of the police told the Younger Committee on Privacy that ex-criminals and associates of criminals operated as private detectives.

I have given only two examples because I want to be brief. Undoubtedly, there are others, and perhaps I may use this opportunity to ask members of the public and business concerns to send me further examples of abuse so that a full dossier can be brought together for examination by the Home Office and to be presented to this House. It is beyond doubt that the present system is wide open to abuse, and to criminal abuse. The opportunities that the industry gives to criminals are clear enough, yet the situation is that entry into the industry is uncontrolled. Even if a man working in this industry is convicted of a crime in the job that he is working in there is nothing to prevent him returning to it after his sentence has been served.

For example, if a private detective here was convicted of the kind of offence for which the Watergate conspirators are now serving sentences in the United States there would be nothing to prevent him in this country recommencing work as a private detective on the day of his


release. I cannot believe that this situation can be in any way satisfactory. Several countries have already recognised the problems and have introduced licensing systems.

My Bill is not a call for licensing for its own sake. It is a recognition that there are important issues at stake, issues involving public policy on crime and individual liberty and privacy. This industry is not one that can go entirely unregulated. The Bill would establish a licensing board on the lines of the Gaming Board. It would aim to ensure minimum standards throughout the industry and to eliminate the criminal element within the industry. It would provide a valuable method of protecting the public and encouraging the undoubtedly good firms which already exist.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Norman Fowler, Mr. Deedes, Mr. Edward Gardner, Mr. David Walder and Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson.

SECURITY INDUSTRY LICENSING

Bill to provide for the licensing of private security firms, of firms which manufacture, supply and fit security equipment, and of private detectives, presented accordingly, and read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday 20th July and to be printed. [Bill 175.]

RAILWAYS

3.55 p.m.

Mr. Fred Mulley: (Sheffield, Park): I beg to move,
That this House condemns Her Majesty's Government for allowing the uncertainty about the future of British Railways to continue and for its failure to produce a policy designed to ensure the utilisation of our railways to the greatest social, economic and environmental advantage.

Mr. Speaker: I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
welcomes the continuing support which Her Majesty's Government is giving to British Rail and recognises the need for Her Majesty's Government to complete its assessment of the most effective future rôle of our railway system as soon as possible".

Mr. Guy Barnett: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I draw your attention to the fact that in the Vote Office this afternoon there were no copies available of the review of railway policy, which is central to the subject we are debating? I have succeeded in obtaining from the Library a relatively flimsy document consisting of a summary of the report of the Government on the subject. Should not hon. Members at least have this available to them to enable them to take part in the debate?

Mr. Speaker: That is not a matter for me, but I hope that the point has been noted and that something may be done to remedy it as quickly as possible.

Mr. Mulley: In view of your remarks, Mr. Speaker, about the large number of hon. Members who wish to speak I shall seek to curtail my speech, and this will involve my presentation of the case in outline. No doubt my hon. and right hon. Friends will put flesh and blood on the bare bones of my argument.
Our purpose in selecting British Railways for debate is threefold. First, the House should have the opportunity of


making its views known to the Government before firm decisions are taken so that it can reflect the considerable public interest and concern about the future of the railways.
Secondly, we want to stress again the anxiety not only of the staff but of the general public at the long delay by the Government in reaching a decision about the future of the railways. We understand that the review was begun in June 1972, and, of course, matters were made much worse by the unauthorised publication—and the Government's handling of the issue—last October of a map showing a greatly reduced railway network. If something along the lines of that unauthorised disclosure were to happen it would be a national disaster.
Thirdly, we seek to set out in general terms, because we lack the detailed information for precise quantification, the kind of rôle we on the Opposition benches see for British Railways and the policy we believe the Government should pursue.
Recently we had the benefit of the publication of the British Railways Board's proposals to the Minister and the chairman's Press conference. They seem to be a modest set of proposals. In a number of respects, especially with regard to commuter services and freight, I should like to have seen a more radical programme. In the opinion of the Opposition, the Minister should review these proposals as a minimum basis for what is required and not as a maximum.
Having said that, I appreciate that the British Railways Board describes its proposals as interim only. But I believe that we have to try to look into the real rôle and future of our railways. I hope that we shall have from the Minister an assurance that, as well as the proposals of the British Railways Board, he will take careful note of and consider the representations which have been made to him by the railway unions. We have all been impressed, for example, to read the constructive proposals of the NUR which were published last week.
There is a consensus on one point at least. It is that the present railway network should be maintained and that the present mileage of about 11,500 should

remain the minimum. I do not suggest that this means that no single mile of railway line should ever be closed. But, equally, we have to be prepared to consider the possibility of putting down new railway lines to meet new situations.
Many people have suggested for example—I am glad that the British Railways Board has caught up with this one—that we should try to reverse the trend of the abandonment of private sidings and that it would be a good idea if we subsidised firms to have private sidings so as to move goods directly by rail away from the point of production. Clearly, the Channel Tunnel will involve new railway lines, and if—though I hope that it will not happen—the Government persist in the Maplin development it is obvious that new railway lines will be required there.
I suggest to the Minister that, while he is making up his mind about the future of the railways, all closure proposals should be deferred. There is great concern that past policy may prejudice what we hope will be a dramatic change on the part of the Government. In case the Minister suggests, as he has done in the past, that his Government have a much better record about the closure of railway lines than that of the Labour administration, let me remind him that in the case of every mile closed since 1970 Labour Ministers had decided to keep it open. If we had not it would not have been there for the present Government to close. I hope that he will not elaborate that argument.
As for investment, we all pay tribute to British Railways for the way that the inter-city passenger services have been developed. I am sure that the House will wish the board well in its pioneering work with the high-speed train, which is to have its first public trial quite soon. Then will come the advanced passenger train of the future.
I am concerned, however, about the implicit suggestion that these services can be maintained only by higher and higher fares. In many ways such a policy will defeat the object of providing these first-class passenger services.
We hope that the Government, in their review, will consider providing a subsidy comparable to concessionary fares on public transport in cities in order to


enable disabled people and old-age pensioners to travel free or at reduced fares in off-peak periods.
What is proposed by the British Railways Board in terms of commuter services is less satisfactory. Very considerable investment is necessary. I do not suggest for a moment that by developing railway commuter services all the very serious problems of congestion in our great cities will be solved. But I believe that the railways have a rôle to play in conjunction with the passenger transport authorities. All this will cost money, not least because the great problem of travel to work is the peak hours and the fact that equipment cannot possibly be utilised for the greater part of the 24 hours. It will be expensive. But against the purely commercial return we have to set the very important social and environmental factors involved.
The proposals in the British Railways document about freight are even more disappointing. There is a tendency to exaggerate the rôle that the railways can play in the moving of freight. It is suggested in some quarters that if only the railways were used properly virtually all commercial vehicles would disappear from our roads. I am sure that we all know that that would not be possible. On the other hand, if new measures were taken and if the management of British Railways concentrated on the problem a very considerable increase in rail freight would be possible. Certainly I should like to see the management more concerned about this than about its field reorganisation problems.
If, as I understand, the Government have rejected the concept of quantity licensing, about which I have always conceded that there are problems, other proposals have to be forthcoming because in many cases traffic will not go to the railways unless deliberate decisions are taken.
I have mentioned already the possibility of a subsidy to private sidings. I feel that this is a case where some form of environmental subsidy or formula should be devised.
In addition to getting traffic off our roads, we are all concerned now about the prospects of a world fuel shortage in the foreseeable future. This could be another factor in arguing for special con-

siderations to get more freight on to the railways.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: May I put one question to my right hon. Friend? If he is not in a position to answer it immediately, perhaps he will let me have the facts later. It is alleged that under the Rome Treaty we are not allowed to subsidise the railways so as to give them an unfair advantage over road transport. Is that the case?

Mr. Mulley: I shall be coming on to deal with the problems which may be posed by Britain's entry into the EEC. In fact, I suspect that the boot is likely to be on the other foot and that the railways may benefit under EEC regulations. However, I want to keep my speech as short as possible. I shall be dealing with my hon. Friend's point in the sequence in which it appears in my speech notes.
I come now to what is the most important and probably the most difficult aspect of the problem. I refer, of course, to the financial structure of British Railways. Since the last war—and probably even before it—as a nation we have greatly neglected investment in transport infrastructure under successive Governments, especially in respect of the railways. The nation and the economy are suffering today as a consequence. It is clear that cutting manpower is not the simple answer to the problem of railway finance. I remind the House of the impressive record of British Railways over the past 10 years in reducing their manpower. The figures have been given by the chairman. From 439,000 employees in 1962 there has been a reduction to 230,000 in 1972. The board proposes to make a further reduction of another 40,000. The answer lies in much more investment rather than in concentrating on cutting manpower further.
We should pay tribute to the cooperation and increased productivity of all railwaymen of all grades over this period. But I do not think we should tax too much their dedication and loyalty. Equally, we need to make clear that the pay of people in the public sector should not be restricted or conditioned by the financial state of the industry for which they work, over which they have neither control nor responsibility, and whose course and condition are to a large extent dictated by Government policy.
The hard fact is that we cannot judge railway finances by the canons of commercial accountancy. We have to make allowances for the social and environmental benefits which the use of railways offers. In the 1968 Act, introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) and carried through by Mr. Richard Marsh, the present Chairman of British Railways, this was recognised by payment on social grounds for unremunerative passenger lines. We can say now, with the benefit of hindsight, that it was probably wrong, even after allowing for that factor, to require the railways to work on a commercial basis, particularly in the carriage of freight, in every other respect. I think that my right hon. Friend and Mr. Marsh were wrong in not making sufficient allowance for the advent of a Conservative Government and their disastrous economic and industrial relations policies. For example, the industrial disputes in the coal and steel industries have had a dramatic effect on railway finances in the last two years.
We also need to remember that if we disregard the very substantial interest charges which the railways pay, they are still making an operating surplus. No country in the world has a railway system which pays, judged by commercial accounting standards. I do not know how much longer it is sensible for us to believe that we can be different from everyone else in this respect.
I have here the latest figures—for 1970—available for the other countries in the European Economic Community. British Railways in that year showed a deficit of £58 million, the Italian railways £335 million, the French railways £227 million, and the German railways £301 million. In round figures, whereas this country gave a subsidy to the railways of £100 million, the French gave £500 million and the Germans £700 million. We have all noted with interest the recent commitment in principle by the West German Government to give further support to the railways.
The right hon. Gentleman may have the effrontery to claim that the present Government have done more for British Railways than any other Government. I ask him to work out the arithmetic in real terms, allowing for rising costs over

the last three years, and to deduct the losses which the railways have suffered through Government policy—for example, having to keep their prices down, having to suffer the losses, for which they have had no compensation, through industrial disputes, particularly in the coal industry, and from the rundown for a considerable period in the steel industry.
The short point is that we need a completely new financial structure for the railways on which the social and environmental factors should be built. We need to get away from the system, as I understand it is today, in which the railways are turning away goods traffic practically every day because they cannot justify carrying it since it could not be done on a strict commercial basis. I have already referred to the problems which may be created if the fares structure for passengers is also assessed on that basis.
What we must also know—this at least I hope to get today—is how the regulations of the EEC will affect the whole pattern of railway finances. We have to take account of a whole series of directives and so on, in particular directive 1192/69 which, as far as I know, the Government have said will as far as appropriate be implemented by us on 1st October. We need to know clearly today what the Government regard as appropriate, and to what extent, in terms of their pension funds, infrastructure costs, bridges, signalling and the like, the railways will receive compensation from the Government because they are unfairly placed vis-à-vis road transport, which has its roads, traffic lights, and the rest all provided.
If all these conditions are to come into effect on 1st October, difficulties arise for us because of the Summer Recess. We are now well into July, and I understand that we are about three weeks from the recess. If we do not have an opportunity this month to discuss the Government's attitude to the EEC regulations, we shall come back in October to find them already in force. It is imperative that the Government provide time for the House to be acquainted with this information and to debate it. I hope that we shall get a complete statement of Government policy towards the railways before the Summer Recess and that the Government will provide time to debate it. Certainly,


before 1st October we need to know about how the Government see the development of the railways in the context of the EEC regulations currently in force and those which are likely to be introduced.
We cannot fail to note in this debate the immense change in the public attitude to British Railways. Not so long ago the railways were the cinderella of the public service. They had the image of slow, late and dirty trains and expensive tea served in chipped cups. Today they are the queen of the environmentalist lobby—

Dame Irene Ward: Nonsense.

Mr. Malley: —and it is claimed that nearly all our transport problems could be resolved by further investment in their use. Obviously, both these pictures are exaggerated caricatures of the true position, but they illustrate the great improvement in British Railways over recent years and—very important—the trend of public opinion.
What is unmistakable is the need for British Railways to play a vital rôle in our transport planning and our economy. What is also unmistakable is the existence of a strong body of public opinion that the railways are a great national asset and that it is in the national interest that they should be utilised to the greatest social, economic and environmental advantage. Above all, there is a determination that we should not take decisions now based on budget balancing and crude commercial accountancy which all of us will bitterly regret 10, 15 or 20 years from now. The Government will neglect this public opinion at their peril.

4.19 p.m.

The Minister for Transport Industries (Mr. John Peyton): I beg to move to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
welcomes the continuing support which Her Majesty's Government is giving to British Rail and recognises the need for Her Majesty's Government to complete its assessment of the most effective future rôle of our railway system as soon as possible".
I begin with the point made by the hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Guy Barnett). The document with which he was concerned is not in any way a Government document; nor is it particularly

the subject of today's debate. I have, however, made inquiries, and I understand that photostat copies are now available in the Library. Further copies are being made available in the Vote Office as soon as they can be got here from Marylebone.
I ought to say at the start how grateful I am to the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley) for the mildness of his condemnation of the Government. and go on to say that I fully understand the reasons why he was so mild. We were all impressed by the charm and skill with which he reminded himself of the questions which had faced him when he was in office not much more than three years ago. I was sorry to find though that with the passing of the years he has not been any more successful in finding clear answers than he was then.
On the point made by the hon. Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Arthur Lewis) on the subject of the EEC regulations, these are long and complicated. They owe their length and complexity to the number of people who took part in framing them; but it was clearly the intention, and has certainly since been the practice, of most of those who did frame them to give whatever help they thought fit to their own railway systems, and that they have done resolutely. I have no doubt that no Government in this country which wished to help the railways would be in any way inhibited from doing so by the EEC regulations to which reference has been made.

Mr. Mulley: I was hoping the regulations might persuade a reluctant Government to give help to the railways. Is not that also implicit in the discussion?

Mr. Peyton: The right hon. Gentleman ought to wait. I have congratulated him and thanked him for his mildness and also for his modesty. I believe that is a very becoming quality in politicians in approaching the subject of the railways, for we have over many years exhorted, legislated, interfered with and almost managed but never solved the problems of this extraordinary industry about which so many people feel more deeply than they think.
Soon after Mr. Marsh became Chairman of the British Railways Board I


invited him and his board to examine the industry and to advise me as to what choices in terms of railway policy could be put before the Government and Parliament, what rôle the railways could perform to the advantage of our country in the decade ahead, and what it would cost. I am grateful to him and to his staff for the time and energy which they have applied to this very baffling task and for the patient way in which they have responded to the goadings of my Department and myself. The board's part in what has been a very substantial exercise was pretty well completed last month when it delivered to me its last document. At the same time the chairman gave an outline of the board's conclusions to the unions, whose patience during this long process I most readily acknowledge.
I have myself already seen the three general secretaries and I am having a further meeting on Friday with them and members of their executives in order to hear their reactions to the chairman's statement. I will in due course be discussing with them the Government's proposals before reporting these in detail to Parliament, probably as part of a larger transport document, after the recess. While this debate has come, therefore, a little earlier than I myself would have chosen, it is useful in that it will give the House an opportunity to express its views on what Mr. Marsh has said, an opportunity which will be renewed in the next Session of Parliament when the Government's own ideas will be put before it.
Meanwhile, I should perhaps tell the House that Draconian cuts of the kind at one time rumoured following the escape of a regrettably mobile document are not, in the view of the Government, the answer to the industry's or the nation's problems. The House will, I am sure, be conscious of the fact that pending the completion of the examination I have considerably slowed down the rate of passenger closures. The right hon. Gentleman, whose clarity of thinking I have always applauded, seemed to get a little confused on this subject. If I could just refresh his memory as to what has been going on, whereas under the late administration 3,430 route miles were closed, in the past three years the figure has been a mere 135 miles—something which really must

come to the right hon. Gentleman as a considerable shock after what he was saying only a moment ago.

Mr. Mulley: On the contrary, I am, of course, extremely pleased. I am only sorry that the Minister has thought fit to close 135 miles which, rightly or wrongly, we decided to keep open, otherwise they would not have been there for him to close.

Mr. Peyton: I am almost overcome by the sympathy which I feel for the right hon. Gentleman and my sorrow that somebody who is such a good judge of a case should have ventured to make that point then. But, still, policy must be the explanation.
I am persuaded also that in looking at the problems of the system a distinction should be drawn between those parts which are well used and those which are used, as it were, only by hearsay. The House will, of course, be aware of the fact that under European legislation the previous limit of three years which attached to undertakings to pay grant on unremunerative services disappears. I believe many people will feel that this is a change for the better, as the previous arrangement inhibited good management and certainly discouraged even the most minor improvements which might have helped the services towards better results.
I believe it is very important that we should at least try to learn from the past. It seems to me that ever since the war the railways have tended, often enough with the encouragement of Governments, to live somewhat in the past. They have not been alone in that. They have been optimistic about their ability to hold and win traffic and contain their costs. They have not always related their investments to financial return—and the 1967 White Paper very properly drew attention to this. They have paid too little regard to the sensitivity of their business to the national economy as a whole and they have underrated the effect of better roads and the expansion of the road haulage industry, which, with its greater flexibility, offers a service with which, at least over short distances, the railways cannot easily compete.
It has to be admitted that Governments have been equally slow to move with the times, instanced by the continuation, long


after it was justified, of the common carrier liability and the imposition of financial duties the performance of which must have been perceptively impossible even at the time that they were laid down.
Having called attention to some of the failures, I think it only right to take note of the considerable achievements of the industry during years of difficulty and change. The labour force has been more than halved since nationalisation, with a reduction of over 200,000 men since 1962. While passenger miles and freight ton miles remain at much the same level as in 1965, wagons have been reduced by 60 per cent., marshalling yards by 70 per cent., carriages by 45 per cent. and locomotives by 50 per cent. At the same time greater productivity, better planning and marketing, and the safety record—which is probably without equal anywhere in the world—are features which should not be ignored and in which all concerned can take pride.
It would be appropriate if I were to spend a few moments dealing with the suggestion frequently made—I appreciate that the right hon. Member for Park restrained himself in dealing with this point—that our problems would soon be over if only the Government would do the sensible thing and direct freight from road to rail. It is worth noting that, whereas in the 1968 Act the Labour Government introduced a system of quantity licensing, they did not, under the right hon. Gentleman's wise stewardship and management, go to the folly of putting it into effect. Had they done so they would have found themselves and our transport system enmeshed in a bureaucratic cobweb of nightmare proportions, without conferring any reasonable benefits on the railways. The more one interferes with and slows down the movement of goods, the more one tends to add to the number of vehicles and the cost of moving the same quantity of goods.
I recognise that there can be few people who have not felt how wonderful it would be if the contents of the monster immediately ahead of them on the road or the Leviathan which had just churned its way through a once peaceful village could be interred decently and peacefully in a rail wagon.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: The Minister has pointed to the greater flexibility of road transport and also to the fact that because we pay for the roads and other services the roads are cheaper in terms of overheads than are the railways. How will it ever be possible to attract freight back to rail if we are to leave it simply to mere competition?

Mr. Peyton: This is a difficult point, and I shall leave the hon. Gentleman to make his own speech, the contents of which will be fully observed and noted.
Quite apart from the fact that customers usually have very good reasons for picking their own means of transport, there is clearly, as the right hon. Gentleman said, only limited scope for transferring freight from road to rail. Most journeys in this country are short. Indeed, the average freight haul is only about 40 miles—or, to put it in another way, four-fifths of the goods carried on our roads travel for less than 50 miles. What the railways are properly looking for, with my active encouragement, is blocking traffic, either on a merry-go-round basis or over long distances. To put the matter in perspective, a 50 per cent, increase in rail freight would only reduce total road traffic by less than 2 per cent. and would reduce goods traffic on the roads by less than 8 per cent. Any benefit in terms of reduced congestion would be eroded in under six months by normal growth.
Nobody can pretend that the financial history of the railways since the war has been anything other than disappointing. In the last 10 years over £3,000 million of assistance by way of write-offs, loans and capital and revenue grants has been made available by successive Governments. Between 1963 and 1968 losses amounted to £800 million. The 1968 Act wrote off a debt amounting to £1,200 million. Over the three years during which the present Government have been in office Government assistance to the railways by way of grant and loan has amounted to £422 million. In 1972 the total payments by the Government to the railways was £138 million. This year the figure is likely to be considerably higher.

Mr. Harold Walker: Mr. Harold Walker (Doncaster) rose—

Mr. Peyton: I want to come quickly to the end of my remarks because I have already been reminded by Mr. Deputy Speaker that there are many hon. Members who wish to take part in this debate.
We should all by now at least be familiar with the difficulties, disappointments and dangers. We have no alternative but to accept that none of the nostrums or prescriptions which have been tried hitherto has worked. Mr. Marsh—I am most grateful to him for taking the chair at this difficult stage in railway history—has at least had an opportunity of looking at the problem from two angles. He has put forward some proposals which would, if accepted by the Government, involve a further and express commitment to the railways. The Government and Parliament now have to decide—or will in the near future be faced with this decision—how far we should be justified in accepting a series of proposals which, even if they prove to be effective, would certainly not be cheap.
I end on this note. It is easy enough to debate, in a rather cursory manner, the affairs of a great industry such as the railways and to make inadequate mention of the men who have given a lifetime of service to it and whose concern at a time of uncertainty must naturally be great. I am very conscious of this, and I should like to work as quickly as possible towards a solution, but in recent months I have been powerfully reminded of how stubborn and difficult a problem this is. I hope that I may have the indulgence of the House in asking for a little further time.

4.40 p.m.

Mrs. Barbara Castle: I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman the Minister for Transport Industries on his modesty in defence of the Government's policy. He has a great deal to be modest about.
It is typical of the present Government, and sadly typical of the Department on whose behalf he is speaking this afternoon, that we should be having this discussion about the future of our railway system, not only without a Government document on railway policy, but without a Government document on transport policy at all. Vital as it is for us to have this debate and to force the Govern-

ment into the open as to their plans, it is appalling that we should have to discuss the subject, with all the economic implications which have been indicated, without even having had a clue about the Government's overall transport strategy.
The House will, I am sure, forgive me a certain amount of ironical satisfaction when I look back at the attitude of the Conservative Party during the passage of the Labour Government's legislation on transport. Never will those of us who were engaged in the all-night sittings on the Transport Bill forget how the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, with his running mate then and now—the Minister for Aerospace and Shipping—used to keep us up in a desparate attempt to prevent that Bill from reaching the statute book and, in fact, staking their whole political futures on achieving that end.
Never shall we forget how the Conservative Party and its various allies in industry poured out millions of pounds in propaganda posters all over the country—"Kill Transport Bill". Not only did they not succeed in killing the Transport Bill, but they have not even attempted to kill the Transport Act. The right hon. Gentleman may remember, after his few fleeting and superficial remarks about the proposals for quantity licensing, that there was a pledge in the Conservative Party's election manifesto that when they were returned to power they would repeal that iniquitous provision in that Act.

Mr. Peyton: I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for reminding me of this. I assure her that it has not been forgotten. What she has to deal with is the fact that her own Government failed to put her scheme into practice.

Mrs. Castle: I am coming to that. The right hon. Gentleman cannot stay broody for too long. We are desperately waiting to see what egg he lays, and what part the Transport Act plays in his policy.
I remind the House that we have been extremely patient with the Government. By the time that I had been Minister of Transport for less than a couple of years, I had put before the House a detailed analysis of the transport problem in this country, as I saw it, in four or five White Papers.
My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Aberavon (Mr. John Morris) had presided brilliantly over a joint steering group of British Railways and the Ministry of Transport to analyse the whole future of the railways and consider what we should do to give them financial stability. Above all, we had produced and begun to carry through the House a comprehensive and mammoth Transport Bill. Yet now, three years after the Conservative Government came to office, we are still waiting for the right hon. Gentleman to produce his policy document, and I suggest to him that when he does it ought not to be a White Paper but a white sheet, and the slogan ought to be "Forgive us, Barbara; we knew not what we did."
One thing is surely clear, though there was no indication of it in the right hon. Gentleman's speech. Even recognising that the right hon. Gentleman is still in the early stages of policy pregnancy, I think he might have given us a slightly more worthwhile analysis of the problems to which he said he was addressing his mind. There can be no sensible discussion of railway policy except in the context of a Government statement of their national transport plan.
I therefore begin by asking the right hon. Gentleman to ensure that when he does put a document before us after the recess it shall not be merely a narrow and, therefore, totally unsatisfactory document dealing with the railways as though one can deal with them in isolation from everything else in the transport field, but will tell us what parts of the analysis of the Labour Government's Transport Act the Government repudiate, and, if they do repudiate some parts of it, what they intend to put in their place in comprehensive terms.
It is no part of my case to claim that the Labour Government's Transport Act cannot be improved in any respect. In transport, things change rapidly. The traffic and environmental problems in this country have changed in the past five years, and we must take account of that, just as in drawing up the Transport Bill in 1967–68 I had to take account of the vast changes that had taken place since the first Labour Government's Transport Act of 1948.
None the less, I suggest to the House that the logic behind the 1968 Act was so compelling that the Government have not been able to get away from it. They have made no move to alter any of its provisions in the three years that they have been in office, despite the fact that they said that they were going to do certain things immediately.
The Government have been sluggish or downright negligent in taking advantage of the provisions of the Act in order to achieve its aims. What were those aims, and what should be the aim of any national transport policy? What was the Act's philosophy? First, we argued that if we were to save our urban and rural environment from further and further devastation we must make the revival and expansion of public transport our key priority.
Secondly, we argued that on social as well as economic grounds this country would need a substantial railway network for as far ahead as we could see and the country must be ready to pay the price. That is why, when I took over as Minister of Transport, although I found in the pipeline, in accordance with the Beeching philosophy, proposals to slash the railway network to 8,000 miles, after mature and detailed consideration of all the things that a Minister in that situation has to take into account—economic, financial and social factors—we produced a plan to stabilise the network at 11,500 miles and thus put into reverse the previous Conservative Government's policy.
Thirdly, we argued that if the social and environmental aims were to be achieved we must plan the integration of movement by road, rail, air and water as a deliberate aim of Government policy.
I am sure the House will agree that since that Act was introduced the environmental arguments have been strengthened enormously. When I took over as Minister of Transport, the most vociferous lobby in this country was that represented by road interests. The propaganda and pressure groups, let by the British Road Federation, said that we must concentrate all our national resources on building the first 1,000 miles of motorway.
The environment lobby had barely been born, and when I tried to suggest that there were other considerations that


we should bear in mind I had an uphill task because almost the whole of public opinion and the then Opposition were against me, and what alarmed me this afternoon was to hear the Minister at that Dispatch Box mouthing arguments that were already out of date in 1968. He put forward the argument that the road system must always prevail on economic grounds.

Mr. Peyton: Mr. Peyton indicated dissent.

Mrs. Castle: I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will read HANSARD, if he does not manage to cook it before it goes to press. He has said it before. To hear the right hon. Gentleman, one would think that speeches had not been made throughout the length and breadth of the country by representatives of the Department of the Environment. The Government must make up their minds about whose side they are on. Are they on the side of the environmentalists, whose favours they are currently wooing with words? If so, are they prepared to back that with action and with finance?
One the integral parts of the policy of the Transport Act 1968 was that we should seek to restore the morale of railwaymen, which had been depressed over the years by not only the railway closures and continuing uncertainty about their future but the fact that they lived all the time in a deficit industry. That was one of the prime aims.
If one cares about the workers in an industry, one has to think of the psychological factors that affect their morale. All the time that the House of Commons was having to have debates about the losses on the railway system, this was helping to make railwaymen feel that they were second-class citizens; hence the financial solution that was worked out so ably and so thoroughly by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Aberavon and the other members of the joint steering group on railway policy. Incidentally, we put a working railwayman on that group in order that we should have first-hand access to the views of the rank and file.
From that grew the decision for the vast writing off of capital debt—£1,200 million, as the right hon. Gentleman has said—and the introduction of grants for

clearly defined and carefully costed social purposes. The grants were not only for the socially necessary railway lines. The steering group analysed all the other overheads that it felt that the railways were expected to carry unjustifiably, in connection with level crossings, bridges and so on.
Yet now, five years later, we have Mr. Marsh telling us that there is no such thing as a viable railway network. He says that he must have a more "flexible" financial framework with greater financial support, and, as an interim measure, he wants to double investment to £1,700 million over the next decade, with no guarantee that this will enable the railways to pay their way.
The House would not be discharging its economic responsibility if it did not examine such a proposal very carefully indeed.
Let me say at once that I agree with Mr. Marsh on one thing. Slashing the railway network will not make it viable. We must never again pursue the Beeching mirage, the feeling that there is somewhere a hard core of high-speed intercity railway lines which, if the system be cut down to that hard core, can be made to pay its way. Mr. Marsh is right. That is purely illusory. He is right, too, in saying that the right way is not to cut the network of 11,500 miles but to see that it is better loaded, to make more economic use of its capacity. But, that said, I must add that the House could not be expected to authorise investment of £1,700 million on the basis of such a superficial and slipshod document as British Rail has put before the Minister.
Anyone who has been in government knows that money does not grow on trees. We know that the financial resources are inevitably limited and, therefore, that one can only have one form of expenditure by forgoing another form. That is why we need to have detailed plans worked out much more scrupulously.
In answer to Mr. Marsh's demand that he should be given a more flexible financial framework, I say that the way that he has presented his case is the best justification for refusing—as we refused—to continue writing off from time to time capital debts accumulated as a result of over-optimistic forecasts, and


instead, as we did in the 1968 Act, making a clear distinction between the areas and forms in which we ought to subsidise the railways on social grounds and, on the other hand, those areas of the board's finances in which it ought to be subject to commercial discipline.
I am ready to wager that when the right hon. Gentleman at last comes to laying his long-delayed egg, I shall find that he agrees with that fundamental analysis.
Perhaps the 1968 Act did not leave British Rail enough financial help. I am prepared to accept that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Aberavon was tough. He was told to be tough, and he was tough. But he tried to be tough and fair.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley) said, the railways are peculiarly susceptible, on the freight side, to fluctuations in the state of the national economy. If there is a slump, the freight that they carry slumps too, the bulk traffic, and so on, and they are down in the red through no fault of their own. Perhaps we were too tough and did not give the railways enough financial elbow room. Perhaps new areas of British Rail's activities ought to be identified for Government support. I shall come to that matter shortly.
However, the principle of the 1968 Act is right. It is a pity that Mr. Marsh, while praising it as a notable step forward, does not even suggest ways in which the principle that I have outlined might be extended while keeping the essential financial discipline for which we have a right to ask. Indeed, the railways are their own worst enemy when they ask that their financial framework should be flexible, because the great danger is that the country may pick up some of the arguments that the right hon. Gentleman used this afternoon and begin saying "We cannot continue finding this money. Let us slash the lot."
In looking at what needs to be done, we must break down the problem into its two main elements—passenger and freight. I want to make some constructive suggestions under both those headings. Let us take, first, the passenger services. Here, our first priority must be to maintain the passenger routes, to maintain the

11,500 miles network, and not least to maintain the routes in the rural areas. That is one of the most essential steps that we can take to help the environment.
I repeat that we are today looking at railway policy in the context of a new sense of public urgency about the need to preserve the environment. Rural transport is a mess. Despite the new powers, opportunities and grants given in the 1968 Act, effectively nothing is being done in that field. It is a scandal that the counties do not have a rural transport policy and that the Government do not have a policy for making the counties have a policy.

Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for the right hon. Lady to take up such a large proportion of the time at the disposal of back benchers?

Mr. Eric S. Heffer: The hon. Lady will learn something if she listens.

Mrs. Castle: Despite the hon. Lady's interruption, I intend to continue to the end of my speech. She can leave the Chamber if she finds it totally unpalatable.
I was saying that our first aim must be to maintain the network. Last year the Government spent £68 million on grants for the socially necessary railway lines. We must be prepared to increase the level of those grants, if necessary. We might at least have had from the right hon. Gentleman this afternoon an indication of whether he is prepared at least to do that.
If we are to afford an expansion of these grants we must look carefully at other proposals for financial expenditure, like the rather sweeping proposals for electrification and development of faster intercity services. From an environmental point of view, that should be the priority: whether electrification on selected lines can actually enable the railways to compete with the air routes, as has been done as a result of electrification to Manchester. If we can do that and reduce air flights we are helping the environment. This is all very desirable, but it must be selective.
We must throw all our money and strength behind the development of commuter services. When railway men got


depressed about the shrinkage of traffic on certain railway lines I always said to them that I foresaw the future of the railways lying in the development of new rail services in the congested commuter areas. Thanks to the 1968 Act, that is happening. If the right hon. Gentleman is honest he will admit that the proposals of that Act, for setting up passenger transport authorities with powers for drawing up integrated transport plans and the introduction of 75 per cent. infrastructure grant for new forms of public transport have been a most helpful development yet produced in solving our urban transport problem. The Act set up four passenger transport authorities. They varied in effectiveness. What is the right hon. Gentleman doing to bring them all up to the level of the best'? If he cared a damn about transport policy he would at least listen to the questions instead of carrying on a running conversation over his shoulder. He has treated the House with indifference in his speech. He might at least listen to the debate.

Mr. Peyton: I assure the right hon. Lady that I have been listening to her—for a long time.

Mr. Heffer: No, the right hon. Gentle. man has been talking.

Mrs. Castle: We would have welcomed a longer speech from the right hon. Gentleman if it had contained anything. His speech took at least three times as long as anyone else's would merely to say nothing.
I am asking him what he is doing to bring all the passenger transport authorities to the level of the best and to encourage their plans for rapid transit schemes What can be done has been demonstrated in the Newcastle area by the Tyneside Passenger Transport Authority, through its rapid transit schemes. This is directly relevant to the problem of the railways and their finances. In the Tyneside Passenger Transport Authority area there are about 30 miles of existing British Rail track losing £1,500,000 a year on commuter services. These are now to be linked up by rail, by means of a tunnel and bridge, to create one integrated rapid transit scheme.
I give the right hon. Gentleman credit for this. I understand that last year,

under the infrastructure grants provisions, he announced that he would give this authority a grant of £60 million towards the rapid transit scheme when it has obtained the necessary powers from the House of Lords. I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on that, but I ask him why he is dragging his feet over a similar scheme in the SELNEC Passenger Transport Authority, in the Manchester area, where the authority got powers a year ago to build a rapid transit scheme linking the commuter rail services north and south of the city by a central area rail tunnel. This requires a grant of £70 million, consisting of £40 million for the tunnel and £30 million for upgrading 35 miles of existing track and increasing its reliability. The authority is ready to go to contract. It went to see the right hon. Gentleman about it last month, yet he has still not announced his willingness to give a grant.
There are areas in which we can expand and revitalise our railway services so that they can make a massive contribution to the problems of congestion in our urban areas. On the freight side there are two clear policies that the Minister could adopt. One has already been outlined by my right hon. Friend. Far from spending a lot more money, as Mr. Marsh seems to propose, on the wasteful and money-losing wagon-load traffic which is supposed to have been rationalised in the last 10 or 15 years and on which he does not yet have a rationalisation plan, it would be far better if he seriously explored the suggestion of the Labour Party and the railway unions that the Government should subsidise the development of private sidings. We all know that the private siding-to-private siding rail traffic could be one of the ways to take juggernauts off the roads. Why, then, does he not take this proposal seriously?
Secondly, I suggest that, far from repealing the quantity licensing provisions of the Transport Act, the Minister should extend and modernise them. He said that this would involve us in a vast bureaucratic jungle. What—a bureaucratic jungle merely to say that 100,000 of the heavier lorries should be licensed if they were going more than 100 miles.

Mr. Hugh Dykes: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
The right hon. Lady has been speaking for almost half an hour.

Mr. Heffer: Why not?

Mrs. Castle: And I intend to go on.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. E. L. Mallalieu): I think the hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes) knows that that was not a point of order.

Mrs. Castle: I know that hon. Members opposite are deeply uncomfortable, but I intend to go on filling the gaps in the speech of the so-called Minister.
What is so bureaucratic about saying that a heavy lorry should have to be licensed to carry bulk traffic over any distance—coal, steel or other materials which should be on rail—or that a heavy lorry intending to take a vast weight of goods over 100 miles should have to get a licence from independent licensing authorities? What is wrong with suggesting that British Rail or the National Freight Corporation should be able to object to that licence being granted and argue that rail could carry the load equally speedily, at the same cost and with equal reliability?
The time has come to take the environmental argument seriously—not only to activate those proposals but to extend them and give anyone whose environment is threatened by the intrusion of the juggernauts the right to protest and object to such licences before the licensing authority. Not least, why should we not alter our whole attitude to planning powers? Why should we not, for instance, take seriously the suggestion that local authorities should be compelled, in their structure plans, to place industrial development by a railway siding where-ever possible?
What we need, despite the lip service paid by Conservative Members, is a fundamental change in attitude to the whole problem of our environment. We have not begun to do that. It is because we on this side know that the railways can, as no one else, make their contribution to the saving of our environment that we ask the Government at least to begin to treat this problem seriously.

5.8 p.m.

Mr. John H. Osborn: It is with some trepidation that

I make my speech after two ex-Ministers of Transport as well as my right hon. Friend. One observation which comes to mind after what the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mrs Castle) said is that the railway sidings of old went alongside our dark satanic mills and could never have been regarded as an environmental asset. I have an office beside a railway line and I have good personal reasons for not regarding railways an environmental asset either. When talking about environmental nuisances, this can apply to the railways as much as to the juggernauts. It is necessary to put this matter into perspective. In this debate so far we have been raking over some very cold embers. My mind too goes back to 1968, when I was one of those whom the right hon. Lady had sitting up in a Committee room until a late hour with her. She brought back today many of the arguments that were relevant then.

Mrs. Castle: Well?

Mr. Osborn: We have debated these matters before. I have witnessed this dialogue over a number of years in the periods of Conservative and Labour Governments. In 1962 we had the Transport Act of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Mr. Marples) and the Beeching Plan, and I believed at that time the first steps were taken in the right direction. The right hon. Lady talked about previous Ministers being forgiven, but she should remember that when she was in power car-stickers used to say "Come back Marples: all is forgiven".
The most important feature of the 1968 Act is that quantity licensing was not imposed by the previous Government and that my right hon. Friend will almost certainly feel inclined to repeal it in due course.
Having gone over all this ground, what is new about the situation facing railways throughout the world? What progress has been made in the last decade? What lessons can be learned from other countries?
First, we can take pride in British Rail. Its image has improved over the last 10 years. This is something for which both Governments can take some credit, but the initial steps were taken early in the 1960s. There would be the


advanced passenger train and the highspeed train. By contrast, the United States of America has let its railways disintegrate over the last 10 years. The railways have given way to the monsters on the road and to the airlines. This has been regretted in the United States
Europe has had some added protection, largely through the tariff quota system. There are grave doubts about the financial performance of all railways in European countries. In the Commission, those concerned with transport are asking what has gone wrong. In a recent report by the European Conference of Ministers of Transport. it was stated:
Rail traffic is expanding slightly, or in some cases marking time in absolute terms, but is still losing ground to other forms of transport.
Varying figures are given for subsidies. In Britain, the lose of £26 million must be augmented by the grant of £95 million. In West Germany, there was a loss last year of £143 million and in Italy of £273 million. But these figures depend on which charts we consult.
What is certain is that railways, in spite of tariff quota protection, and longer journeys in Europe, present a problem to all countries that own them. I welcome the fact that because of Regulation 1192/69 there is to be normalisation of accounts. It is reasonable that charges which are to be put on railways should not include the cost of level crossings and bridges, for instance. The cost of these developments should be put where it belongs.
Ten years ago the South African system of rigid laws to put traffic on freight was relevant to our debate. But the advantage there lies in the fact that freight journeys are much longer than they are in this country.
What has been the performance in Great Britain in the last 10 years? Between 1962 and 1971 the tonnage taken by rail in this country fell from 228 million tons to 196 million tons, yet the total tonnage of goods has moved up by 30 per cent., going mainly by road, in that time. In this period passenger miles have risen from 173,000 million to 268,500 million. Passenger miles on the road have risen by 55 per cent. in that time, while the number of rail passenger miles

has remained almost static dropping 4 per cent. at 22,000 million passenger miles in 1971.
In this country 85 per cent. of our freight moves by road and 63 per cent. of ton miles are on the road. The figures in the annual report of British Rail show that there has been a remarkably limited increase in turnover, in spite of increased fares and the subsidies and social grants given to passenger traffic. In fact, the number of passenger miles are down and the freight turnover is down.
The right hon. Lady has criticised the Government for doing nothing, but it is reasonable to say that while her efforts and those of her right hon. and hon. Friends who were Ministers have resulted in a facelift that we are proud to see they also resulted in a reduction in the use of the railways over the past 10 years and particularly over the past five or six years, during the passage of the 1968 Act and immediately afterwards. In the annual report of the British Railways Board, there is reference on page 7 to the extensive use that is being made of road transport.
What are the realities that face the nation, citizens, Parliament and the Government? In spite of the 1968 and 1962 Transport Acts, more passengers and freight have gone by road, which provides an advantage compared with steel wheel and rail.
The point was brought out at a Council for the Protection of Rural England conference in the Sheffield area by someone who said that when they first owned a car many people in the east end of that area were liberated, being no longer tied to timetables, and that they had a freedom which was denied to them hitherto. Many new motorists value the freedom and opportunity given to them by owning a car. There is the same flexibility in moving freight by the juggernaut, however unpopular it may be environmentally.
What more can we do to direct freight back on to the railways? Over the past 10–12 years there has been an increased use of the freightliner service. It is estimated that whereas it is transporting 5 million tons per year now, which is small compared to the whole, this figure may rise to 11 million tons in 1981. That will be a 120 per cent.
increase, but it is still scratching at the problem. My right hon. Friend was right to remind us that those who want to transport goods from one place to another by road and the juggernaut frequently do so because that method is flexible and reliable and has economic advantages.
I turn to the future. My right hon. Friend said that average freight journeys in this country are 40 miles. Freight journeys are longer in Europe, and a bonus of the Channel Tunnel which was explained to Members who listened to a recent presentation is that our freight journeys into Europe could well increase.
But moving freight by rail does not reduce congestion, as was pointed out in the debates on the 1968 Act, when quantity licensing was considered. I remember citing the example of a motor component factory in Sheffield sending components to Luton, Coventry and elsewhere. It costs money to fund large stocks that are not in production, and many customers now want regular deliveries by the hour and not by the day or the week. They cannot afford to have key components lost in a goods wagon on a siding. If lorries are used for journeys from the factory, reliability can be achieved.
But the same journey by rail would mean a lorry to the Sheffield depot and would clutter up roads in the city. At the Sheffield depot, the goods would have to be transferred to a railway wagon to go to another depot near the customer—a motor works—transferred to lorry at the far depot and then taken to the customer. Congestion could well be increased again. I hope that my right hon. Friend will consider these issues when reviewing the alternatives before industry and society, but moving freight by rail today does not necessarily reduce congestion in our conurbations.
One of the difficulties of using public transport is that those who use it are at the mercy of those who provide it, and too frequently in recent years those who provide it have been able to hold users to ransom.
Flexibility is an added advantage when the mobile transport unit is used. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes) has produced a Bill to restrict some environmental consequences

of heavy lorries and juggernauts. The lorry presents us with environmental problems. My right hon. Friend the Minister has announced a reduction in the road programme, of which he gave details in a Written Answer yesterday, at a time when investment is going ahead in our car and vehicle factories to deal with future opportunities.

Mr. Edward Gardner: Does not my hon. Friend agree that the closing down of unprofitable railway lines and services has directly encouraged the appalling growth of equally unprofitable motor traffic, which threatens to extinguish all hopes of a reasonably healthy life in our towns and cities? Should not that be taken into account when we consider the statistics?

Mr. Osborn: It must be taken into account, and there must be a correct method of measurement. However, it could well be that some of the space should be devoted to tracks for independent vehicles, not steel wheel on rail but perhaps rubber on tarmac. These alternatives could well be examined by the "think tank", because they may provide the public transport that is needed.
If goods are taken by a longer route, this must inevitably increase the cost of manufacture and distribution. The prices that are paid in the shop are of concern to the housewife and Parliament. If use is made of longer routes, with more costly distribution, on environmental grounds or for convenience, the price of goods in the shops must rise. The industrialist has a duty to choose the most economic route to move his goods from the factory to where they will be used. It will be essential to know the increased cost to the housewife and the consumer of using the longer route, but I readily take my hon. and learned Friend's point.
We must look to the future. British Rail must be allowed to go into the rest of the century with confidence. The construction of a Channel Tunnel will be advantageous in making it possible to put freight on direct route from city centres in England to the EEC countries and other European countries, but there are difficulties, which have been outlined to us, and the tonnage of freight so moved—5 million tons—will be small.
Energy has been mentioned during the debate. The Government must decide, perhaps not in the context of this debate, how future trains are to be propelled. If there is an oil crisis there must not be too great a reliance on diesel oil and there is a case for increasing electrification more rapidly, but such a crisis in this country is by no means certain.
The man in the street wants to own a car because of its convenience. Similarly the small, flexible transport unit, whether a juggernaut or some other method of conveyance, has economic advantages in moving goods from where they are made to where they are to be used, at the most convenient time and without being confined to timetables.
My right hon. Friend has been right not to be too dogmatic at this stage. When considering the short term, he must also consider the long term. It is reasonable that we should know his views. To have a White Paper on transport policy may be asking too much— [Interruption.] The right hon. Lady laughs, but many plans produced in the late 1960s can now be torn up, because they were based on the wrong assumptions. I hope that my right hon. Friend will not fall into the same trap as did the right hon. Lady and some of her hon. Friends.
There should be a survey of the alternatives. We should know what we can do to improve our environment, to encourage the railways and to limit the juggernauts, which are causing such concern to so many people who have to live near new roads.

5.25 p.m.

Mr. Walter Johnson: I must at once declare an interest. I am an honorary officer of one of the three railway unions—namely the Transport Salaried Staffs' Association. I am certain the House will agree that we are facing a transport crisis. For too many years we have lived with the philosophy that services which do not pay should be withdrawn or at best provided for one or two years with a grant which may or may not be renewed. As a result of that attitude, public transport has declined and its efficiency has been seriously impaired.
Large areas of the country are now many miles from the nearest railway and many villages have no bus services. Traffic congestion in our towns and cities is increasing as more and more people travel by car because the public transport service as an alternative becomes less and less attractive. In a desperate attempt to solve the increasing traffic problems, the central Government and some local authorities have initiated massive trunk and urban motorway construction and road widening and improvement schemes. As people have realised the social and environmental consequences of such a policy, as well as the financial expenditure involved, hostility to such proposals has grown.
People are no longer willing to see communities broken up by motorways being driven ruthlessly through their midst. They are no longer willing to see their environment destroyed. They are no longer convinced by the distorted economic logic which is used to justify such proposals. Fortunately there are signs of an increased awareness of the rôle which public transport must play in future if the quality of life is to be maintained.
The Minister referred to a report which appeared in the Sunday Times of 8th October 1972. Admittedly it was supposed to be a confidential report. It was one of a number of reports which the Minister was considering. The blue book contained proposals for reducing the present British Rail network of 11,600 route miles to 7,000 route miles or less with the idea of a network of 3,800 miles not being ruled out.
In addition to the passenger traffic which would be shifted from rail to road by such changes, the document envisaged the possibility of transferring about 62 million tons of British Rail's yearly 190 million tons of freight to the roads, resulting in heavy lorries travelling an additional 450 million miles on the roads each year. What a prospect! It is disturbing that such a policy could even have been contemplated.
During the last decade the rail network has been substantially reduced. That is a policy which has solved neither the nation's transport policy nor British Rail's financial position. The motion puts the


blame fairly and squarely on the Government for their failure to give a lead to future development and for the reduction of the railway network.
Conservative Members have never fully and properly understood the unnecessary anxiety and worry which such uncertainty causes. People who have invested their working lives in the industry are entitled to be treated better than that. The railways have suffered massive redundancies during the last 10 years. In 1963 British Rail employed 490,000 people. Today the figure is 230,000 and it is shrinking all the time. Thousands of railwaymen have been forced to uproot their homes, not once but many times, because of reorganisation schemes and massive redundancies.
It is only possible from experience to know what it means to have to uproot a home, to find new schooling for the children and to cope with the problem of housing, as well as all the difficulties of moving away from friends and family. Such uprooting must stop. The railwaymen are not prepared to put up with further massive redundancies. If the right hon. Gentleman produces a plan which will cause further redundancies, I can assure him that he will have a massive fight on his hands not only with the railway unions but with the general public.
There is great awareness today that the public will not put up with more rail closures. The trade unions know that a so-called field organisation scheme is going through which could cause between 4,000 and 6,000 redundancies. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to take that very much into consideration when he is drawing up his plan. He said that he is to meet the railway unions on Friday. I assure him that he will get some straight talking, as he always does, from the union leaders and their executives. Further, I can assure him that the unions were quietly relieved when they heard about the Marsh plan just over a week ago. Nevertheless, they will not put up with a situation which will produce further redundancies.

Mr. Ernie Money: Mr. Ernie Money (Ipswich) rose—

Mr. Johnson: The railways have suffered massive cutbacks. First there was the Beeching Plan, which slashed the railways throughout the country. Suc-

cessive Governments have not faced their responsibilities. I do not absolve the last Labour Government, although they made some efforts in the right direction. The fact is that our roads cannot take the volume of freight and passenger traffic which is increasing all the time.
It is a sobering thought that today there are 16 million vehicles on the roads and that by 1980 there will be 23 million. Pollution must be considered. Surely it is common sense to make the most effective use of the railway network which we have at present and to enlarge it wherever possible. To do so would cut down pollution. As a first step, the Government should give the all clear to British Rail to electrify all services. I disagree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) in that respect. Electrification would cut down diesel fumes and at the same time produce a fast and efficient passenger and freight service.
Industry should be encouraged to make greater use of the railways for freight traffic. That would remove from the roads some of the heavy lorries which pollute the air, contribute to traffic congestion and create a noise problem. In Derby, as my hon. Friend the Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead) knows, there is a ring road around the town which lorries use night and day. The House can take it from me—I have been there night and day—that it is sheer hell for the people who live in the vicinity. In many ways it is worse than living near an airport. Much of that traffic could be carried by rail and there would be no noise problem.
The Minister should consider the following basic conditions of getting more passenger and freight traffic on to the railways. First, they make no further visual intrusion. Secondly, they cause virtually no pollution. With electrification there would be no pollution. Thirdly, they make more economical use of the land. Fourthly, they cause far less noise nuisance.
Further, the Minister should encourage local authorities to study the possibility of keeping private motorists from the centre of large towns. That would require adequate car parking at the perimeters and fast, efficient and reasonably priced public transport. That would


greatly relieve traffic congestion and would help to eliminate exhaust smog in towns and cities.
I know it is said that we cannot keep lorries out of the centre of towns because most railway stations are sited in the centres of main towns. But surely it is not beyond the wit of British Rail, with the support of the Government, to build sidings or terminals outside the towns. Lorries could be loaded and unloaded at those points and there would be no necessity for them to go into city centres. Surely that is common sense.

Mr. J. H. Osborn: Does not that mean building ring roads to ensure that the lorries go round the towns and not through the middle of them?

Mr. Johnson: It does not mean that at all. If one made a proper study one would realise that many of the ring roads to which I have referred could be eliminated. What I have suggested is a constructive way to deal with the problem of lorries going into the centres of towns.
Critics may say that that is all very well, but what about the cost? If we want to maintain the quality of life and to keep our railways solvent and running efficiently, surely we can afford the cost of doing so.
Total public support for continental railways is much higher than it is in Britain. France, Germany, Italy and Japan spend far more on their railway systems than we do, yet their road systems are hardly inferior to ours. The true subsidy of German railways in 1971 was £525 million. According to a report last weekend the Germans are prepared to spend £1,200 million this year in support of their railways. The French railway subsidy is expected to be £500 million, as it was in 1972.
The Department of the Environment in its report on the future size of the railway network is obsessed with the idea of making the, railways nay. But the railways are unfairly saddled with charges which do not apply to road operators and which distort the commercial argument. There are the costs of track, signalling, policing, lighting, bridges and so on. The fact remains that a modern railway system must invest or rust away.
To enable it to press on with major new developments and investment programmes, British Rail needs to know the permitted extent of its operations not for one or two years ahead—as under the present system of social grants—but for 20 years ahead. It also needs money, public money. In 1971 British Rail spent £26 million on maintaining and renewing its track, and it paid interest of nearly twice that amount on capital. In the same year about £850 million was spent on roads. No interest charges were levied on that money which came from the public purse, as for a free social service. No one suggests that the roads should be anything but a free social service.
We must also take account of the social cost of roads. Last year 8,000 people were killed on the roads and there were 129,000 bad accidents. We must take into account what that means in terms of the heartache of the families concerned, the cost of hospital treatment and the loss of production. It must be common sense to take some traffic off the roads and on to the railways, thereby making more effective use of our railways.
Future generations will not forgive the Government if they do not face the realities of the problem with all the available knowledge at their disposal. I ask the Minister to be bold, to be imaginative, to put Britain first rather than the Tory road lobby and some of the Tory Party paymasters. The people who work for British Rail are a loyal and devoted body. They want the opportunity to do a job of work for the country and for the railways. Give them the opportunity, produce a plan, and they will deliver the goods.

5.38 p.m.

Sir Gerald Nabarro: I was pleased to hear the hon. Member for Derby, South (Mr. Walter Johnson) refer to the document that my right hon. Friend called a mobile document. A few weeks ago my right hon. Friend suggested that it had found its way into print largely because of a leak in a high quarter of British Railways and that nobody had traced how this had occurred. The document gained wide credence and contained figures that were exceedingly disturbing. They were that the railway network would be reduced


from 11,600 miles to 7,000 miles with a prospect of a further reduction to 3,800 miles. Such a scheme would be utterly unforgivable having regard to the traffic statistics before us.
The road vehicle population has increased so that for every one vehicle in 1947 there were approximately three vehicles in 1972. It has trebled. In the next 25 years it is estimated that it will double. In other words, there will be six road vehicles in 1995 for every one vehicle in 1947
Accompanying this has been the progressive rundown of the railways, as manifest by a reduction in manpower from approximately 420,000 to 220,000 men. That is almost exactly the same rate of reduction as occurred in the coal mines, where the number of men employed has gone down from 710,000 at the time of nationalisation in 1948 to about 285.000 today. I have said on other occasions that the rundown in the coalmines has been much too fast and much too great. I say this evening that the rundown in the railways has been much too great and much too rapid. It has denuded us of a method of transport which is invaluable to the economy and invaluable to us in the medium term and for the transport requirements for the rest of this century.
The amount of money that has to be invested—and this may form the nub of the argument in the next few months—will undoubtedly hinge on what Mr. Richard Marsh has to say. He claims that the figure is £1,700 million a year. I claim that that figure is probably slightly exaggerated. Whether or not it is exaggerated, we can none of us afford a railway system that is either too small or that places an unnecessary burden on roads that are already grossly overloaded and cannot carry any more traffic.
I am critical of motorways. Motorways in Worcestershire, as elsewhere, have played a prominent part in recent years. There is great objection to motorways carving their way through small and happy villages, which would otherwise remain relatively undisturbed. Motorways have been built on too large a scale in the non-commercial and non-industrial quarters of Britain. Motorways face special legal and financial difficulties, and a brake will have to be placed on their

construction in the next few years because we are planning more motorways than we can possibly afford to finance.
Let us take, for example, the motorways from east to west that are planned to link the West Midlands with the East Midlands and East Anglia. If the estimates are correct, they are to be constructed at a cost of hundreds of millions of pounds—many of them evidently without any intense traffic justification.
All the while they are being constructed at the expense of the railway system, without any due regard to building up, by a commensurate volume of traffic, the amount of freight and passengers that could otherwise be carried by rail. I claim that that is a wrong system, that we ought to concentrate much more heavily on our railways and that certainly we ought to provide for an investment of approximately £1,000 million in the railway system during the next few years if we are to prove successful in the kind of transport era that we want into the 1980s.
I cannot talk in depth about these railway requirements because I have no knowledge of what the Minister proposes. I will caution him about one matter which is near to my heart because it affects the only railway line left in my county, namely, the four-cities line—the railway line from Paddington to Oxford, to Worcester, to Hereford. This, I believe, is doomed to failure due to the lightness of the traffic on it, and at present it is attracting a subsidy—I call it a subsidy, but it is really a grant in respect of a line said to be unremunerative if calculated on an economic basis, leaving out questions of social audit to which the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley) referred—costing £575,000 a year to keep open.
The railwaymen have done everything possible to keep it open. They have reduced the track to a single line, they run only seven passenger trains a day between Paddington and Worcester, with one or two going on to Hereford. In my judgment it is not possible to reduce the £575,000 a year any further. The line is doomed to lose that money for all foreseeable time in the future. Suggestions are already coming to me that the line must be closed and that the huge investment in electrification from Euston to Coventry, to New Street, Birmingham, to


Wolverhampton Low Level, to Stafford, to Crewe and on to the North-West must be called into action, and that the Worcestershire and Hereford route must be diverted via Birmingham.
It would be a long way round. It would take a quarter of an hour or 20 minutes longer for each journey undertaken. Then, the whole of the Worcestershire and Herefordshire countryside virtually from Moreton-in-Marsh, in Gloucestershire, right through to Worcester, on to Great Malvern, over the Hereford border and down to Hereford city, would be totally denuded of railway line. The economists will say that it does not pay, how can we make good the revenue? I say that the socially desirable railway lines under the Act of 1968 must be perpetuated and that any attempt to cut them out will deprive large communities in Britain of essential transportation services.
In his calculations and in the voluminous railway White Paper that my right hon. Friend will undoubtedly produce—he is looking pregnant, I fancy he will deliver shortly—

Mr. Peyton: I hope that my hon. Friend will not follow the example of the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) in attributing this state to me too often, because I can assure him that there are no foundations for it. There may subsequently be a production of a paper. I do not like heavy papers but there may be the production of a paper of considerable dimensions, not limited to railways.

Sir G. Nabarro: My right hon. Friend and I have co-operated over 20 years in this place and I know him well enough to know that he is exceedingly distasteful of any form of bureaucratic activity. I repeat, whatever is the form of documentation that is eventually decided upon, be it a voluminous paper or a White Paper, he will have to delineate his policies. When he does so, I trust that he will spare a merciful thought for the kind of uneconomic activity, uneconomic that is in a strictly economic judgment of whether it pays its way, taking into account every penny spent, and have some regard for the social consequences of shutting down lines which link such important communities. On that I close and wish him well

with his transport activities, for I am certain he will produce the best plan that we have had in recent years.

5.50 p.m.

Mr. Ron Lewis: I have listened with interest to the hon. Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir G. Nabarro) and have been thrilled by the tour that he gave us of the railways in his part of the country. I must first of all declare my interest, in that I am an active member of the National Union of Railwaymen.
I first indict whoever was responsible for this debate because they have allowed only three hours for it. This is the first major debate on British Railways in this Session. It is confined to three hours, half an hour of which was taken up by one Member. Ten Adjournment debates in this Session have been associated with railways, dealt with from a local point of view with hon. Members fighting closures in their areas.
Since the end of the war there have been four Acts of Parliament, all of which, in the main, were designed to make the railways pay, with the possible exception of the 1947 Act, although it was designed to that end. The 1947 Act brought the railway system into public ownership. There then followed the Acts of 1953, 1962 and 1968. Over these years, largely as a result of those Acts, the railways have suffered from a succession of reorganisations, rationalisations and legislative changes.
At times there have been centralisation schemes and at other times decentralisation schemes. Many of these have meant that it has been necessary to change horses in mid-stream which has not been good for British Railways and the morale of their staff. A great deal of money has been involved in conforming to such policy changes.
From time to time the railways have been used as a political shuttlecock and their financial principles have not been clear. I am glad to note from what the Minister indicated this afternoon that he is to start consultations with not only the Railways Board but the rail unions. The newspapers gave the National Union of Railwaymen a bad Press following the disclosures of Mr. Marsh's plans. I put on record now that our criticism of those proposals was that they did not go far


enough. Of course we were pleased that he agreed that there should be no cutting back below 11,000 miles. However, I believe—and I am sure that the unions will put their view to the Minister—that not only should there be no further rail closures but that every rail closure in the pipeline should be halted. I am thinking especially of a line which joins villages which are often isolated in winter by heavy snowfalls. It runs from Alston to Haltwhistle. The greater part of the line runs through the constituency of the Secretary of State for the Environment who is in a difficult position over this. At times when the roads have been blocked even things like funerals have to be put on the railways because they are sometimes the only system of transport available in those bleak months.
A wonderful thing happened just outside the constituency of my Member of Parliament, my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner). If I do not speak up for him, very few people will. I have a good Member. He is loyal and enthusiastic and he is highly thought of. Just outside his constituency a few weeks ago a railway station was re-opened—Alfreton and Mansfield Park railway station, and from all accounts it has proved a going concern. Surely that is a lesson for any Government to learn about the railways.
In spite of our sacrifices to the Common Market, Britain still needs an efficient, adequate, reasonably cheap and environmentally acceptable transport system for freight and passengers Market forces do not produce such a system. Market forces have produced the juggernaut which no one in this country wants. Market forces have created half-used railways and the city traffic jam. An efficient transport system means planning. I argue, as does my trade union, that the first task of the planners in the Department of the Environment should be the transfer of some—and I underline the word some—freight traffic, particularly long distance, from road to rail. Every private motorist will echo that sentiment. It is necessary on grounds of efficiency, as well as on environmental grounds, and to save scarce fuel resources.
We would argue that such a transfer is unlikely without an extension of public ownership and I would argue for that. The railways should continue to be used

for the tasks to which they are best suited, but that should not be carried to an absurd degree by relegating the rôle of the railways to carrying bulk loads for a restricted number of customers. It is one thing to say that the railways are well rid of local sundries traffic but it is something else to say that anything less than a full wagon load fails to pay its way and should be abandoned. No one dares to say that about commuter services because during the recent unofficial strikes many commuters could not get to work.
The profit of a transport undertaking cannot be the only test of whether traffic should be carried. If we do not subsidise rail, public transport in towns will soon be unable to get commuters to work, and the sooner we face up to that the better. Financial resources for public expenditure fall short of requirements and the present balance of investment between motorway and railways makes no sense. The 1968 Act gave the railway workshops wider powers to manufacture, yet since the Bill became law the workshops have been inhibited from developing those powers to the full. They are permitted only to use their spare capacity for such work and they are hampered in their efforts to obtain work which involves retooling, capital expenditure and so on.
We were delighted to hear the Minister's indication that there would be no action on the lines of what had been suggested in the Sunday Times article to be the proposal. That was the implication that the right hon. Gentleman gave. I was delighted to hear that there had been a modern Saul of Tarsus to the Minister in connection with railway thinking. The right hon. Gentleman was very conciliatory and at times very modest. When he meets the railway unions, I hope that he will continue in that vein and not adopt the kind of attitude of which we know him to be capable when he is challenged.
I may be called a pessimist, but the railways have been chopped, changed and harried, and still they do not pay. I venture to assert that whatever happens we shall still be in the same position many years after the passing of the next Act of Parliament concerned with the railways. Very soon this House and the country must face the fact that if we want our railway system it must be paid for in terms of subsidies.
With that in mind, I hope that the Minister will take note of the closing words of the editorial in the Evening Standard on Monday of this week. It reads:
Instead of its piecemeal approach, the Government ought now to be working out a new and integrated transport system.
If the Government will do that, they will have the backing of every railwayman in the country.

6.6 p.m.

Mr. Andrew Bowden (Brighton, Kemp-town): My comments will be brief and to the point. I ask the forgiveness of the hon. Member for Carlisle (Mr. Ron Lewis) for not commenting on what he said. I merely make the point that I thoroughly enjoyed his speech and found it in complete contrast to a much longer speech from the Opposition benches to which we listened earlier in the debate.
We are seeing the beginning of a new era for our railway system. There is a ground swell of opinion that is growing daily, and I have little doubt that the British people, if slowly, are steadily falling out of love with the motor car. especially as pollution increases and motorways eat up more and more countryside and building land. In this connection we may be able to learn a lesson from the United States of America before it is too late. Recently the Governor of New Jersey said:
We are choking on the fumes of our own exhausts. We are spending literally millions of unproductive hours examining the bumpers of our neighbours' cars and we stand immobile waiting for trains that never arrive. The time has come to say, 'Enough'.
That lesson is one that we in this country can learn, and I believe that we shall learn it before it is too late.
I want to turn to some of the special problems facing the south-eastern area of England and, in introducing those problems, to quote the words of Mr. Ray Buckton, who wrote, in an article in a leading Sunday newspaper:
A major factor crucial to our success in Europe will be our ability to provide a transport system for industry to move raw materials and the finished products swiftly and efficiently.
When we talk in terms of economics—of the railway system paying or not paying—I suggest that we have to take a

much wider view than simply asking whether a given track or part of a railway system shows a profit at the end of the year. In the context of Ray Buckton's words, perhaps I might make a number of specific suggestions. I emphasise that I am concentrating on the area with which I am principally concerned, namely the south-east of England.
I hope that a halt will be called to all further closures. I must tell my right hon. and hon. Friends that if there are any further attempts to close any railway lines in the south-east of England they will have one hell of a fight on their hands—

Mr. Leslie Huckfield: From whom? From the hon. Gentleman?

Mr. Bowden: My second suggestion is that grant-aided passenger services should be funded for a minimum of 10 years. It is quite unreasonable to expect the management of British Railways to be able to live on the hand-to-mouth basis of a year, 18 months or even two years in advance. The basic minimum should be five years, and I ask my right hon. Friend to consider 10 years.
I suggest, thirdly, that we go ahead with the construction of the Channel Tunnel. This is essential unless the whole of the south-east of England is to become totally unrecognisable within the next 40 or 50 years. In conjunction with that—and I know that I am moving on to very much more difficult ground—I ask my right hon. and hon. Friends to look carefully at the provision of some form of incentive for industry to use the railways on a bigger scale than it has been doing in the past.
The last of the precise suggestions that I wish to make is that if we are to succeed in coping with the problems of transportation in terms of our railways we must have a greatly expanded research and development programme. Have not we really got matters a little out of balance when on the high-speed train we have spent £10 million, and when, in the same breath, we talk gaily of other schemes involving hundreds and even thousands of millions of pounds?
I end on a somewhat local note. Most hon. Members have passed through Brighton station, and I hope in the next


few years that once again we shall be able to invite Members to their party conferences in Brighton. I can assure the House that I am pushing ahead with this as fast as I can, with great respect to those hon. Members who represent Blackpool constituencies.
Many thousands of my constituents are commuters. With the help of the Central Division Manager of British Railways Southern Region, Mr. Paterson, a number of meetings were held on peak-hour trains between London and Brighton to give commuters the chance to put direct questions to the chief railway official in the division, Mr. Paterson, and me. The newspapers came to call them "Grumblers' Specials". A large number of useful ideas came out of these meetings. I know that Mr. Paterson found them very helpful. My hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and Shoreham (Mr. Luce) has adopted the idea and has had at least one similar meeting in his own area. I commend the idea to other hon. Members who feel that it might be useful in their different parts of the country.
I have come to know many members of the railway staff at Brighton. I have been extremely impressed by the vast majority of them, their courtesy and their determination to be helpful. I believe that there is a new pride growing among all the staff of British Railways as they come to realise that the nation and, I believe, the Government are rethinking these problems. The nation will rue the day unless we ensure that our railways are financed and equipped to meet the demands of generations to come.

6.15 p.m.

Sir Geoffrey de Freitas: I shall take only five or six minutes, and therefore I shall refer to the speech of the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemp-town (Mr. Bowden) only in passing. But I should certainly comment on the morale of the railwaymen. Kettering Station is 72 miles from St. Pancras, but we are in a commuter area because the fastest trains take less than an hour to do the trip and even the slower ones take only one and a quarter hours. The morale of the railwaymen has recently been rising because of these improvements in the service, which has enabled many people to live in Kettering and work in London.
I shall not comment on what is known as the "mobile plan", which escaped from the Ministry and was published in October in the Sunday Times, because there is not enough time. Instead, I draw the House's attention to the coincidence that at the very same time there appeared an article in an OECD publication that brought to the forefront a fact about the use of energy for transport. It was claimed that the energy required for transport by road was three times the amount required for equal transport by rail.
I do not know whether that is correct. I hope that the Government will, one day soon, comment on it. Until recently, it was possible for Ministers to ignore references to energy, but it no longer makes economic sense for them to do so. It would be irresponsible for them to ignore the fact that we face the possibility of a shortage of the raw materials required for producing energy.
I had hoped that Transport 2,000, the organisation representing the environmental bodies and the rail unions, would have the resources to alert all hon. Members to the dangers of the Government assessing the "most effective future rôle", as the Prime Minister terms it, for the railway system. Yesterday I received the usual stuff that one gets before a debate like this from the British Road Federation, but nothing from Transport 2,000. I hope that it would bring to the attention of all Members of the House the fact that even if our railways are subsidised by £100 million a year, France pays five times that amount to her railways and West Germany pays eight or even 10 times that amount to hers. If they find it worth while to do so in order to keep their railways going, why should not our Ministers study their example?
I have here Regulation 1192/69 of the EEC Council of Ministers. Under it the Government have certain obligations to British Rail. It is not a draft from the Commission. I ask the Government, is it not a regulation made by the Council of the Community under which member Governments must compensate the railways for costs imposed on them which are not shared by other forms of transport?
My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Arthur Lewis) appeared


to get the matter completely the wrong way round when he intervened earlier. Is not the effect of the regulation to protect the railways, their users and their staff, from unfair Government subsidised competition from the roads? Will not the Government have to compensate the railways, for example, for their expenditure on road bridges and level crossings and on staffing and maintenance and operation of the signalling system? If this is so, it will come to a considerable sum. I have seen a calculation that it could be up to £100 million. Is the figure as large as that?
We must have an independent inquiry into the effects of various forms of transport on our environment and our national resources. That inquiry must consider the balance between subsidising the railways and subsidising road transport, because road transport is being heavily subsidised. I do not believe that it is for this Government to assess the most effective future rôle of the railways because the Government could do a great deal of harm. Rather it is time for an inquiry, and I would even go so far as to suggest a Royal Commission for the purpose, even though that would mean delay.

6.20 p.m.

Mr. David Waddington: I hope that the right hon. Member for Kettering (Sir G. de Freitas) will forgive me if I do not follow his speech save in one respect—that, like him, I shall not pay overdue attention to the motion, which I am sure was drafted with many tongues in many cheeks. I do not think that any right hon. or hon. Member opposite has directed much of his attention to the motion.
I want to concentrate on the report to the Government by British Railways. Once again we are faced with losses. I do not accept that they are due simply to inherent difficulties in running any railway system in the 1970s. One should acknowledge that there are sometimes defects in the service, but that is not my theme tonight. I make it clear that I am entirely opposed to the wielding of any axe and to the closure of any more lines.
We cannot ignore the enormous sums of public money already spent on the system; it is there with us and we have

paid for it. We cannot ignore the uncertainties about future fuel supplies. We cannot ignore the present concern for the environment. Any Government who ignored that concern should think again very quickly, because today few issues concern people more. We cannot ignore the great inconvenience that would be caused in certain parts of the country if there were any more closures.
What I am advocating is that more thought should be given to where new capital expenditure ought to go. I am extremely sceptical about the proposals for a substantial development of the intercity services and vast further expenditure on the electrification of more main lines. I concede that main lines, like those from Manchester to London and Liverpool to London, used intensively by businessmen, ought to pay. But what evidence is there that an electrified east coast route would have the same potential? What evidence is there that a marginal improvement in the service between here and Bristol would attract very much more traffic, when the service between here and Bristol and South Wales is already very fast and efficient?
Much more attention should be directed to a matter not dealt with at all in the report—feeder lines. Here, I shall go in for some special pleading. I refer to the lines from Preston to Manchester, Manchester to Blackburn and Preston to Colne. They are not so much country lines connecting small towns as lines connecting outlying areas with main line stations, and British Rail surely has an interest in putting on a good show on those feeder lines, so as to encourage people to use the main lines rather than travel to London from north-east Lancashire, for instance, by express bus. But little or no effort has been made so far, and I am not surprised that these lines have to be subsidised.
The service on the line from Preston to North Lancashire is diabolical, with dirty, rattling, malodorous rolling stock, devoid of any power of acceleration worth talking about, creeping and clanking across the land and taking as much as an hour to cover 17 miles from Preston to Accrington. One travels in contraptions that one mounts from decayed, dilapidated stations equipped with no more than a tiny shelter—and for what


reason? The only reason I can see is that British Railways have always adopted the view that as Government grants were probably not going to last for very long there was no point in doing anything about the service.
I would have thought that there is really the strongest case—and I invite the Minister to consider this very carefully—for making these social grants available for a minimum period of, say, 10 years so that British Railways will know precisely where they stand and will have an incentive to improve the kind of line to which I have referred. Then we may see the day when refurbished main line stock hauled by diesel engines will be back on those lines and there will be a return to civilised rail travel.
Lastly, I hope the Minister will never allow himself to think that because the lines to which I have referred have been allowed to decay they can be closed without trouble. If he thinks that, he really has another think coming. Only if road and rail links with the central Lancashire new town are improved can we in northeast Lancashire, for example, be expected to survive the impact of the new town—and the only way the Government of the day managed to reduce to some extent the enormous opposition towards the proposal that there should be a central Lancashire new town was by assuring north-east Lancashire towns that there would be an improvement in communications between them and Preston. That is the issue for which we fought and fought again.
We fought for the Calder Valley road, and now we are fighting for our railway service—and we intend to continue to do so. So I urge the Government to close no more lines and to realise now that concern for the environment is so great that people are not prepared to put up with the great inconvenience that railway closures cause to those living outside large towns. I urge the Government, therefore, to accept in part the proposals put forward by British Railways—those proposals that suggest that there can he no cutting down in the size of the overall network. I urge the Government, instead to think again about those proposals that would involve the Government in enormous capital sums, which

would not necessarily attract to the railways any more passenger traffic.

6.27 p.m.

Mr. David Stoddart: I have been in this House now for three years, and this is the first occasion in that time that we have had a debate on the railways. It is a shocking thing that the debate should take place in Opposition time and should be of only three hours' duration, because it concerns a subject that concerns most hon. Members. Many hon. Members here today will wish to speak but will not have an opportunity to do so. I sincerely hope that the Government will soon have a debate about the railways, and, indeed, about transportation generally, lasting a full day and in their own time.
I represent Swindon, which was at one time a great railway town. I am also a member of the Electrical Trades Union, which has members within the railway organisation. I have to say that over the years Swindon has suffered very greatly from rail closures and the rundown of the railway system. Indeed, the number of people employed in the workshop at Swindon has declined from 15,000 to 2,000, and a further 300 are to be made redundant after their return from holidays this year. So my constituents are very concerned, because in the past, though not so much at present, their fate has been tied up inextricably with the fate of the railways.
The Beeching "axe" was certainly a local disaster for Swindon, but it was also a national disaster, from the point of view of its effect not only on the transportation system but on the environment of this country. Although the 1968 Act certainly did something to halt the decline in the railway system it still did not recognise the central truth that railways could not be made to pay when they were competing on an unequal basis. I believe that that central fact is still not recognised by the Government. Until it is recognised by the Government the railway system will not have ploughed into it the capital that is necessary, nor will it be given the financial assistance that is necessary if the railways are to play their proper part in our total economic and environmental life.
The British Railways Board has concentrated—and to some extent I agree with


it, for it has certainly been successful—on inter-city trains, often to the detriment of local services, and certainly to the detriment of freight. I have a suspicion that the railways have been deliberately turning away freight traffic which they could otherwise have had from industrialists who would have been only too pleased to send it by rail. My own experience of a firm in Swindon confirms this. Because British Railways have not recognised that they could have freight traffic the roads between Swindon, Oxford and Longbridge have been cluttered with lorries carrying car bodies which could far better have been carried on the railway system. It needs new thinking on the part of British Railways and a new approach to their duty and their rôle in the carrying of freight in the future.
The latest review of railway policy, which has been submitted by the British Railways Board, encourages one to think that the railways at last are beginning to believe in themselves. It is important that they should. For a long time they have not—and because they have not, other people have not been prepared to believe in them. At last they are beginning to realise their central and real rôle in our transportation system and their importance to economic and environmental life. Nevertheless, their thinking is still not bold enough.
The board says that there will be a capital requirement of £1,700 million to be invested in the railways over the next 10 years. I submit that that is altogether too modest, because when we think about it it compares with a proposed Government investment of £4,250 million in roads over the same period. If we add to that figure the total investment of the country in vehicles, we are talking of a total investment of between £16,000 million and £20,000 million in the road system. There is a terrific disparity between the two. I believe that it is necessary for the railways to be rather more bold.
The board's proposals on freight simply do not meet the real needs, and the need to reverse the trend of carrying goods by road. What it is actually planning for—and one accepts that there will be a total expansion of freight carriage—is a much lower proportion of an increasing

volume of freight traffic. In my view, that is an act of folly, and I hope the Minister will make clear to the board that he thinks it is an act of folly, and that it should not be so timid in its proposals. He should send the proposals back and ask the board to be much bolder in its approach to this problem.
I hope that the Minister will draw attention to the fact that the planned reduction in the wagon fleet is not good enough. If he makes sure that the wagon fleet is kept at a high level—and it will need to be if it is to have an expanding rôle in the transportation system—it will help the country, the environment and the economy and it will also help my constituents, as I am sure the Minister wants to do.
It is always difficult for staff, and for a board running an organisation, to be constantly reminded of the fact that it is being subsidised. We must somehow get away from this attitude. I suggest that it is the country's duty to pay the railways an annual sum for providing the infrastructure, so that it may be available to us all whenever we need to use it. In the same way that a motorist pays £25 a year so that the infrastructure of the roads can be provided, so the taxpayer should pay a substantial amount to the railways to compensate them for keeping that infrastructure available to us all as taxpayers.
I have listened to the whole of this excellent debate. Incidentally, we have seen some radical conversions on the Conservative benches. It is important that the House should recognise that the railways will succeed only if the morale of the people working on them is kept at a high level. I hope that this debate and future debates will increase the morale of the workers on the railways, and that this consideration will colour the Minister's attitude so that we shall have a railway system that is the finest in the world.

6.37 p.m.

Mr. Tom Bradley: This has been a very useful but all-too-short debate on a vital topic. It has mirrored the anxiety of the country and of hon. Members on both sides of the House who have expressed similar fears for the future of the railway network. There is anxiety and fear in the


country over the Government's intentions, and it must be said that those anxieties were not allayed by the Minister's speech this afternoon.
The right hon. Gentleman entertained us but he did not enlighten us. He permitted himself to say that the British Railways Board's policy review would not be cheap. I remind him that neither would the alternative to it be cheap. The Minister made great play of the Government money which has been expended over the years in support of our railway system—money provided by Governments of both political complexions. But the Minister did not acknowledge the fact that the board has paid back to the taxpayer over £180 million in the last four years in the form of interest on its fixed-interest debt, there being no equity capital. But for that fact, the Railways Board in the last four years of operations would have made a surplus of £163 million.
The Minister gave us no inkling of his intentions. Apparently we must wait until the autumn for the full details of the Government's research and consideration, and this despite the fact that only last July in this House he gave me an assurance that he would consider as a matter of urgency the publication of a White Paper. In the meantime, in view of his statement this afternoon, uncertainty will continue in the industry and among the population. This is just not good enough. The Minister at least should have committed himself categorically to an assurance that he will make a full statement to the House before we rise for the Summer Recess.
There have been many references to the blue book which was leaked to the Sunday Times, a book which the Minister's Department had not the competence to conceal. I have no wish to dilate on what was said in the blue book as reported in the Sunday Times, because it has been mentioned over and over again in this debate. However, I find it incredible that such an option was even considered as one of the alternatives open to the Department having regard to the country's appalling and worsening transport problems. We must be the only country in the world that is giving consideration to that kind of retrograde step when most other countries are thinking

of expanding their railway networks rather than reducing them.
I have no time to discuss the consequences of road congestion, social inconvenience and environmental pollution which has resulted from the substantial reduction of the rail network during the last decade and the natural growth of road transport. What is clear beyond doubt is that the rail network surgery has neither solved the nation's transport problems nor improved British Rail's financial position. The Minister seemed to get himself and other hon. Members involved in a discussion of what Beeching did and what the Labour Government did. I remind the right hon. Gentleman that it was an earlier Conservative Government which by its votes in this House secured endorsement for what was laid down in the Beeching Report on the reshaping of our railways. Their balance sheet mentality produced a bigger crisis than they set out to solve.
We now have the startling revelation from the British Railways Board that its computers have thrown up the information that there is no such thing as a viable railway network. We are told that the smaller the system, the less viable it may become. Some of us may be forgiven for saying that we have been offering that view, with the aid of far less technology, for years.
I have no intention of getting bogged down in the road versus rail argument. It is largely sterile. We know the relevant figures and what can and cannot be done in regard to transferring traffic from road haulage to rail. But a great deal of the traffic conveyed by road would be unsuitable for conveyance by rail because of the special nature of the traffic involved or because of the short journeys. Nobody can fail to be alarmed, however, at a situation in which a growing proportion of freight traffic is passing on overcrowded roads alongside an under-used railway system. It should be part of a national transport policy to use rail to the maximum possible extent. The railways policy review is an interim strategy only. It is pending the Government's consideration of social, economic and environmental questions. Goodness knows how long we shall have to wait for that, but it is a matter of extreme national urgency that the Government should get on with the job.
Richard Marsh is right. It is a matter not only for the size of the existing network but of what is carried on it. The problem is one of allocating appropriate cargoes to the best mode of transport, taking into account social and environmental costs. Except for bulk carriage, rail transport tends to become competitive only with loads over 75 miles. That is in commercial terms. But the freight business of British Rail is restricted to such terms. By national decision, many passenger services are not confined to commercial terms. Rail spare capacity is such and road congestion so severe that a case exists for subsidy to British Rail freight operations. The time has arrived for suitable loads to be diverted from road to rail, either by direction or by financial inducement.
The board's recent review of railway policy is far too defeatist in its approach to wagon-load traffic. One wonders why £12 million has been invested in a system called "Tops" to identify the placement of wagons throughout the country. It is a profound mistake for the board to work itself out of this type of business, as many of us think it is doing as an act of deliberate policy, while making the excuse that it is all concerned with what are called market forces. There is great scope in this section especially if industry can be attracted to the use of private sidings. The Government give help towards the cost of such sidings in development areas, but there is now a strong case for a far more widespread application of such grants to enable more wagonload traffic to be trunked by rail, bringing with it valuable social benefits.
The authors of the 1968 Act clearly intended that most long-distance freight should be diverted to rail. They instanced two means of doing this. They expected that good relations between the board and the National Freight Corporation would lead to the latter allocating as much traffic as possible to rail. Things have not worked out that way. In fact, competition within the public sector of transport between British Railways, British Road Services, the National Freight Corporation and National Carriers Ltd., is as fierce as it is outside the public transport service. Much trunking of traffic is going on by National Carriers Ltd. that was never originally intended, but the

Minister has shown no inclination to get the Freight Integration Council, whose job it was to look into this question, to work. It has had one meeting since the last General Election, and I hear rumours that the Minister intends to wind up the council. I should like to hear from the right hon. Gentleman on another occasion about his intentions in that regard.
I was amazed that the right hon. Gentleman got himself involved this afternoon in the controversy over quantity licensing. Indeed, it was one of his first actions after being appointed to his office. He could not get down to the House fast enough after the General Election to withdraw the relevant provisions. Anxious to justify his membership of the Monday Club, he appeared within one month of the election to say that what he called the cumbersome regulations would never be operated. Had they been operated, as they surely would have been by now had another Government been in office, we should not have had this difficulty.
The Minister should not be surprised that morale is low and that expectations are not high within the industry. It has been plagued since the war with one reorganisation—I should say disorganisation—after another by a management obsessed with playing about with its managerial operations and structure. Morale in the industry is low, and it will not be improved as a result of the right hon. Gentleman's performance this afternoon.
We are right to condemn the Government for their inaction and for the confusion which they have created. Those Conservative Members who have this afternoon spoken so feelingly about the preservation of our railway system should join us in the Lobby tonight in condemning the Government for the present unsatisfactory situation.

6.47 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Keith Speed): The closing words of the hon. Member for Leicester, North-East (Mr. Bradley), and even what he said about morale, have been contradicted by his right hon. Friends who have pointed out to the House that morale is remarkably high.
This has been a useful debate. I agree with the hon. Member for Carlisle (Mr. Ron Lewis) that it has been too short, but everything that has been said by right


hon. and hon. Members on both sides will be taken into account.
I must point out to the House that it is only 16 days since the British Railways Board's studies were published and that discussions are continuing with the board. I must also point out, as virtually everyone has agreed, that no previous Government, of any political persuasion, have got this problem right. It was not got right in the 1968 Act and it is a little unreasonable, within 16 days of receiving these studies from British Railways, to expect my right hon. Friend to make a full policy statement.
The right hon. Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley) asked about EEC Regulation 1192, and this was referred to also by the right hon. Member for Kettering (Sir G. de Freitas). The Government accept that under Regulation 1192 they are obliged to make payments to British Railways in respect of level crossings. We are also considering the validity of the board's other claims under these regulations. The House should know that some of the obligations are discretionary, and these will be considered overall in the light of the Government support that we have to give at the end of the policy review.
The right hon. Gentleman and others raised the question of private sidings. The situation is that help could be given in certain circumstances in assisted areas under the Local Employment Act 1972 or the Industry Act 1972. I accept much of what has been said and the force of the argument, but without any more commitment than this I say that we are considering the question of private sidings in the context of this review. I can say no more.
The right hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) gave us a vintage speech, polemically short of firm ideas but not, alas, in time. I agree with two or three of the things said by the right hon. Lady. I agree that in the past the railways have made over-optimistic forecasts. I agree, too, with the right hon. Lady and with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Waddington) that investment must be continually and critically looked at. That is right, but the right hon. Lady will realise that one reason for this debate, and the reason why my right hon. Friend

asked British Railways for their studies, is that we did not get it right in the 1968 Act. As the right hon. Lady said:
British Railways will be standing on their own feet and will be expected to pay their way."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th December 1967; Vol. 756, c. 1293.]
We know that that did not happen, and that is why for the last year we have tried, and for the next few months we have to continue to try, to get this thing right.
The right hon. Lady criticised the fairly brief report which is more by way of an aide-mémoire to the unions from the British Railways Board and Mr. Marsh, and clearly the report and everything else that we are considering is much greater than that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. J. H. Osborn) made the not unimportant point, which is sometimes overlooked, that there can be environmental minuses in rail or any form of transport development. I suggest that if there is a new motorway, a new marshalling yard, a new airport and a new oil pipeline terminal, they can seriously affect the people who live in the areas involved. It is nonsense to pretend that transport does not bring its own environmental problems. I suspect that 70 or 80 years ago horse carriages in London may have been good for window boxes, but environmentally they were not very sweet.
I urge the House to remember that we are facing all these transport problems because people demand a higher standard of living. If they have that, it means that people and goods tend to travel more and further afield. That means increased transport to cope with the people and goods travelling more and further afield. It leads to difficult decisions, and there is no easy solution.
The hon. Member for Derby, South (Mr. Walter Johnson), my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Mr. Bowden) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne seem to have misunderstood, or not to have heard, what my right hon. Friend said about grants under European regulations for unremunerative passenger services. It means that these grants will not be limited in term as they are now,


and I repeat what my right hon. Friend said about that.
The hon. Member for Derby, South repeated, as others have done, the hoary comment about the document that was stolen last October, and I stress the word "stolen". The matter was more than adequately dealt with by the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Leslie Huck-field) and myself during a debate on 31st January. If anybody wants to read the full history, and to read a good railways debate too, I suggest that he reads the Adjournment debate on that date, and for goodness sake let us get this document dead and buried. It is no longer relevant to any of these discussions.
I do not underestimate the point made by the hon. Member for Derby, South, but I quarrel with him when he accuses my right hon. Friend, myself and others of a lack of sensitivity towards the feelings of railwaymen. I cannot accept that. On many occasions my right hon. Friend has said how much he sympathises with and appreciates the problems of the railways and the unions. My father-in-law spent more than 60 years on the railway, and I assure the hon. Gentleman that from close personal knowledge I appreciate the problems of what I call the old-time traditional railwaymen on whom this country has relied for many years.
My hon. Friend the Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir G. Nabarro), in his usual pungent way, had a go at the motorway network. Two motorway sections which are opening this week should bring considerable relief, one to the towns of Huddersfield and Brighouse and the other to Highbridge in Somerset. I could not accept my hon. Friend's blatant strictures.
I note what my hon. Friend said about the four cities railway line. In my early and formulative years I did all my railway-spotting at Evesham, and I have some sympathy with him.
The hon. Member for Carlisle spoke with great feeling and sincerity and made a thoughtful speech. He will understand that I cannot go along with everything he said, but I agree that the four Acts passed by Parliament since the war to make British Railways pay have not

done their job, and that is why we are having this crisis again.
Both the hon. Member for Carlisle and the hon. Member for Swindon (Mr. David Steddart) referred to railway workshops in somewhat gloomy terms. I do not wish to bandy this about as a political argument, but closure aid under the present administration compares very favourably with that under the previous administration. Much more important is the question of external sales, which were just over £2 million in 1969 and £6·7 million last year, of which £3 million was for exports. I understand that the trends here are very good indeed and very encouraging. I hope that the hon. Member for Carlisle and the hon. Member for Swindon will not be too pessimistic about them.
My hon. Friend the Member for Kemp-town said that people were falling out of love with the motor car. They may be, but I am bound to tell my hon. Friend that driving test applications were up by 20 per cent. last year on those of 1971 and so far this year they are up by 26 per cent. over last year, so someone somewhere is still wishing to drive a motor car. Nevertheless, I accept and understand what my hon. Friend says about the problems of rail closures in the South-East.
The right hon. Member for Kettering referred in glowing terms to the rôle of railwaymen. I agree with him. He referred to the Transport 2,000 Group. At my right hon. Friend's invitation the group came to see my right hon. Friend and myself on Monday of this week. We had a most useful discussion with them, which was particularly relevant in the context of the debate.
I note what my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne said. He said that we should have a very searching analysis into the merits of electrification. I would not necessarily disagree with that.
The hon. Member for Leicester North-East referred again to the blue book. I certainly would not wish to open that one up. He also referred to the question of the road-rail argument, which was also put very sensibly by the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Park. It is no good deluding ourselves that there is some easy solution. There are no soft


options in tackling these immense transport problems. The future of our rail system is a good one, but it would certainly cost a lot of hard cash to the taxpayer whatever we intend to do.
As the right hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn said. resources are limited. This means that any commitment to the railways along the sort of lines being suggested will inevitably mean that equally desirable spending programmes in other fields of policy will have to be curtailed. The House, the Government and British Rail have to face that problem.
Bearing in mind that last year about £170 million of external support was given to British Rail and that the Marsh plan envisages a net cash support of £1.900 million over the next nine years, we can see that there are major problems.
My right hon. Friend told the House—I re-emphasise it—that these critical decisions on British Rail are being looked at in a wider transport context. We expect to bring our conclusions to Parliament and to the public in the autumn. We shall certainly welcome the views of Parliament and the public on these conclusions.
Meanwhile, however, I suggest that the Opposition motion is an amalgam of inaccuracy, prematurity and muddled thinking. I confidently invite the House to support the amendment of my right hon. Friends.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The House proceeded to a Division.

Mr. Waddington: (seated and covered): On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. As the Chair knows, the debate was scheduled to last for only three hours. I should like to remind the Chair that one particular back bencher spoke for no less than half an hour. I should like guidance from the Chair about what protection other back benchers have against the gross discourtesy of individual Members of the House who abuse their opportunities to speak in that way and prevent others from speaking.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Miss Harvie Anderson): Order. As I am sure the hon. and learned Gentleman knows, that is not a matter for the Chair.

Mr. Waddington: (seated and covered): Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. May I have some guidance from the Chair as to whether there are any other ways in which this matter can be raised or other channels through which it can be dealt with?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I have already said that this is not a matter for the Chair.

The House divided: Ayes 273, Noes 255.

Division No. 185.]
AYES
[6.59 p.m.


Adley, Robert
Buck, Antony
Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.


Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)
Bullus, Sir Eric
Dixon, Piers


Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)
Burden, F. A.
Drayson, G. B.


Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian
Butler, Adam (Bosworth)
du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward


Archer, Jeffrey (Louth)
Campbell, Rt. Hn. G. (Moray & Nairn)
Dykes, Hugh


Astor, John
Carlisle, Mark
Eden, Rt. Hn. Sir John


Atkins, Humphrey
Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert
Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)


Awdry, Daniel
Cary, Sir Robert
Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)


Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)
Channon, Paul
Elliott, R. W. (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, N.)


Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)
Chapman, Sydney
Emery, Peter


Balniel, Rt. Hn. Lord
Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher
Eyre, Reginald


Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony
Chichester-Clark, R.
Farr, John


Batsford, Brian

Fell, Anthony


Bell, Ronald
Churchill, W. S.
Fenner, Mrs. Peggy


Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)
Clark, William (Surrey, E.)
Finsberg, Geoffrey (Hampstead)


Benyon, W.
Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)


Berry, Hn. Anthony
Cockeram, Eric
Fletcher-Cooke, Charles


Bitten, John
Cooke, Robert
Fookes, Miss Janet


Biggs-Davison, John
Coombs, Derek
Fortescue, Tim


Blaker, Peter
Cooper, A. E.
Fowler, Norman


Boardman, Tom (Leicester. S.W.)
Cordle, John
Fox, Marcus


Body, Richard
Cormack, Patrick
Fraser, Rt. Hn. Hugh (St'fford & Stone)


Boscawen, Hn. Robert
Costain, A. P.
Galbraith, Hn. T. G. D.


Ransom, Sir Clive
Critchley, Julian
Gardner, Edward


Bowden, Andrew
Crouch, David
Gibson-Watt, David


Bray, Ronald
Dalkeith, Earl of
Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)


Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)
Davies, Rt. Hn. John (Knutsford)
Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)


Bruce-Gardyne, J.
d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry
Glyn, Dr. Alan


Bryan, Sir Paul
d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Maj.-Gen. Jack
Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B.


Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N & M)
Dean, Paul





Goodhart, Philip
MacArthur, Ian
Roberts, Wyn (Conway)


Gorst, John
McCrindle, R. A.
Rost, Peter


Gower, Raymond
McLaren, Martin
Russell, Sir Ronald


Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)
McMaster, Stanley
St. John-Stevas, Norman


Gray, Hamish
Macmillan, Rt. Hn. Maurice (Farnham)
Scott, Nicholas


Green, Alan
McNair-Wilson, Michael
Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh & Whitby)


Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)
McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)
Shelton, William (Clapham)


Gummer, J. Selwyn
Maddan, Martin
Shersby, Michael


Gurden, Harold
Madel, David
Simeons, Charles


Hall, Miss Joan (Keighley)
Maginnis, John E.
Sinclair, Sir George


Hall, John (Wycombe)
Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest
Skeet, T. H. H.


Hall-Davis, A. G. F.
Marten, Neil
Smith, Dudley (W'wick & L'mington)


Hannam, John (Exeter)
Mather, Carol
Soref, Harold


Harrison, Brian (Maldon)
Maude, Angus
Speed, Keith


Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)
Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald
Spence, John


Haselhurst, Alan
Mawby, Ray
Sproat, Iain


Hastings, Stephen
Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.
Stainton, Keith


Havers, Michael
Meyer, Sir Anthony
Stanbrook, Ivor


Hawkins, Paul
Mills, Peter (Torrington)
Stewart-Smith, Geoffrey (Belper)


Hayhoe, Barney
Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)
Stokes, John


Heath, Rt. Hn. Edward
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Stuttaford, Dr. Tom


Heseltine, Michael
Moate, Roger
Sutcliffe, John


Higgins, Terence L.
Money, Ernie
Tapsell, Peter


Hiley, Joseph
Monks, Mrs. Connie
Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)


Holland, Philip
Monro, Hector
Taylor, Edward M. (G'gow, Cathcart)


Holt, Miss Mary
Montgomery, Fergus
Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)


Hordern, Peter
More, Jasper
Taylor, Robert (Croydon, N W.)


Hornby, Richard
Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)
Tebbit, Norman


Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hn. Dame Patricia
Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.
Temple, John M.


Howe, Hn. Sir Geoffrey (Reigate)
Morrison, Charles
Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Mrs. Margaret


Howell, David (Guildford)
Mudd, David
Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)


Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N.)
Murton, Oscar
Thomas, Rt. Hn. Peter (Hendon, S.)


Hunt, John
Nabarro, Sir Gerald
Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)


Hutchison, Michael Clark
Reeve, Airey
Tilney, John


Iremonger, T. L.
Nicholls, Sir Harmer
Trafford, Dr. Anthony


Irvine, Bryant
Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael
Trew, Peter


Godman (Rye)
Nott, John
Tugendhat, Christopher


James, David
Onslow, Cranley
Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin


Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)
Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Jennings, J. C. (Burton)
Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.)
Vaughan, Dr. Gerard


Jessel, Toby
Page, Rt. Hn. Graham (Crosby)
Vickers, Dame Joan


Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)
Page, John (Harrow, W.)
Waddington, David


Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)
Parkinson, Cecil
Welder, David (Clitheroe)


Jopling, Michael
Peyton, Rt. Hn. John
Walker, Rt. Hn. Peter (Worcester)


Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith
Pike, Miss Mervyn
Wall, Patrick


Kaberry, Sir Donald
Pink, R. Bonner
Walters, Dennis


Kellett-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine
Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch
Ward, Dame Irene


Kershaw, Anthony
Price, David (Eastleigh)
Wells, John (Maidstone)


Kilfedder, James
Prior, Rt. Hn. J. M. L.
White, Roger (Gravesend)


King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)
Proudfoot, Wilfred
Wiggin, Jerry


King, Tom (Bridgwater)
Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis
Wilkinson, John


Kinsey, J. R.
Quennell, Miss J. M.
Winterton, Nicholas


Kitson, Timothy
Raison, Timothy
Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick


Knight, Mrs. Jill
Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James
Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard


Knox, David
Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter
Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher


Lamont, Norman
Redmond, Robert
Woodnutt, Mark


Lane, David
Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.)
Worsley, Marcus


Langford-Holt, Sir John
Rees, Peter (Dover)
Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R.


Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David
Younger, Hn. George


Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey (Sut'nC'field)
Ridley, Hn. Nicholas



Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone)
Ridsdale, Julian
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Longden, Sir Gilbert
Rippon, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey
Mr. Bernard Weatherill and


Luce, R. N.
Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.)
Mr. Walter Clegg.



McAdden, Sir Stephen





NOES


Abse, Leo
Boardman, H. (Leigh)
Clark, David (Colne Valley)


Albu, Austen
Booth, Albert
Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.)


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Boothroyd, Miss B. (West Brom.)
Cohen, Stanley


Allen, Scholefield
Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur
Coleman, Donald


Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis)
Boyden, James (Bishop Auckland)
Concannon, J. D.


Ashley, Jack
Bradley, Tom
Conian, Bernard


Ashton, Joe
Brown, Robert C. (N'c'tle-u-Tyne, W.)
Corbel, Mrs. Freda


Atkinson, Norman
Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)
Cox, Thomas (Wandsworth, C.)


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Brown, Ronald (Shoreditch & F'bury)
Crawshaw, Richard


Barnes, Michael
Buchan, Norman
Cronin, John


Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)
Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)
Crossman, Rt. Hn. Richard


Barnett, Joel (Heywood and Royton)
Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)
Cunningham, Dr. J. A. (Whitehaven)


Baxter, William
Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James
Dalyell, Tam


Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood
Campbell, I. (Dunbartonshire, W.)
Darling, Rt. Hn. George


Bennett, James (Glasgow, Bridgeton)
Carmichael, Neil
Davidson, Arthur


Bidwell, Sydney
Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara
Davies, Denzil (Llanelly)


Bishop, E. S.
Carter, Ray (Birmingh'm, Northfield)
Davies, Ifor (Gower)


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Carter-Jones, Lewis (Eccles)
Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.)







Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)
Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.)
Pardoe, John


de Freitas, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey
Jones, Barry (Flint, E.)
Parker, John (Dagenham)


Delargy, Hugh
Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Parry, Robert (Liverpool, Exchange)


Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund
Jones, Rt. Hn. Sir Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)
Pavitt, Laurie


Dempsey, James
Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)
Pendry, Tom


Doig, Peter
Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, W.)
Perry, Ernest G.


Dormand, J. D.
Kaufman, Gerald
Prescott, John


Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.)
Kelley, Richard
Price, William (Rugby)


Douglas-Mann, Bruce
Kerr, Russell
Probert, Arthur


Driberg, Tom
Kinnock, Neil
Radice, Giles


Duffy, A. E. P.
Lamble, David
Reed, D. (Sedgefield)


Dunn, James A.
Lamborn, Harry
Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)


Dunnett, Jack
Lamond, James
Rhodes, Geoffrey


Edelman, Maurice
Latham, Arthur
Richard, Ivor


Edwards, Robert (Bilston)
Lawson, George
Roberts, Rt. Hn. Goronwy (Caernarvon)


Edwards, William (Merioneth)
Leadbitter, Ted
Robertson, John (Paisley)


Ellis, Tom
Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick
Roderick, Caerwyn E. (Brc'n & R'dnor)


English, Michael
Leonard, Dick
Rodgers, William (Stockton-on-Tees)


Evans, Fred
Lestor, Miss Joan
Rose Paul B.


Ewing, Harry
Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham, N.)
Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)


Faulds, Andrew
Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)
Rowlands, Ted


Fisher, Mrs. Doris (B'ham, Ladywood)
Lipton, Marcus
Sandelson, Neville


Fitch, Alan (Wigan)
Lomas, Kenneth
Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lyne)


Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)
Loughlin, Charles
Short, Rt. Hn. Edward (N'c'tle-u-Tyne)


Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
Lyon, Alexander W. (York)
Short, Mrs. Renée (W'hampton, N.E.)


Foot, Michael
Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)
Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)


Ford, Ben
Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson
Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)


Forrester, John
McBride, Neil
Sillars, James


Fraser, John (Norwood)
McCartney, Hugh
Silverman, Julius


Freeson, Reginald
McElhone, Frank
Skinner, Dennis


Galpern, Sir Myer
Machin, George
Smith, John (Lanarkshire, N.)


Garrett, W. E.
Mackenzie, Gregor
Spriggs, Leslie


Gilbert, Dr. John
Maclennan, Robert
Stallard, A. W.


Ginsburg, David (Dewsbury)
McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)
Stewart, Donald (Western Isles)


Golding, John
McNamara, J. Kevin
Stoddart, David (Swindon)


Gordon Walker, Rt. Hn. P. C.
Mahon, Simon (Bootle)
Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John


Gourley, Harry
Mallalleu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)
Stott, Roger (Westhoughton)


Grant, George (Morpeth)
Marks, Kenneth
Strang, Gavin


Grant, John D. (Islington, E.)
Marquand, David
Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.


Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)
Marsden, F.
Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley


Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.
Marshall, Dr. Edmund
Thomas, Rt. Hn. George (Cardiff, W.)


Hatton, F.
Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy
Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)


Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)
Mayhew, Christopher
Tope, Graham


Hamling, William
Meacher, Michael
Torney, Tom


Hardy, Peter
Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert
Tuck, Raphael


Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Mikardo, Ian
Urwin, T. W.


Hattersley, Roy
Millan, Bruce
Varley, Eric G.


Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis
Miller, Dr. M. S.
Wainwright, Edwin


Heffer, Eric S.
Milne, Edward
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


Hilton, W. S.
Mitchell, R. C. (S'hampton, Itchen)
Wallace, George


Horam, John
Molloy, William
Watkins, David


Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas
Morgan, Elysian (Cardiganshire)
Weitzman, David


Howell, Denis (Small Heath)
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Wellbeloved, James


Huckfieid, Leslie
Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)
Wells, John (Maidstone)


Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Morris, Rt. Hn. John (Aberavon)
White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)


Hughes, Mark (Durham)
Moyle, Roland
Whitehead, Phillip


Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.)
Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick
Whitlock, William


Hughes, Roy (Newport)
Oakes, Gordon
Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick


Hunter, Adam
Ogden, Eric
Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)


Irvine, Rt. Hn. Sir Arthur (Edge Hill)
O'Halloran, Michael
Williams, W. T. (Warrington)


Janner, Greville
O'Malley, Brian
Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)


Jay. Rt. Hn. Douglas
Oram, Bert
Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)


Jeger, Mrs. Lena
Orme, Stanley
Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)


Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)
Oswald, Thomas
Woof, Robert


Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (Stechford)
Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, Sutton)



John, Brynmor
Padley, Walter
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)
Paget, R. T.
Mr. Joseph Harper and


Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)
Palmer, Arthur
Mr. James Hamilton.



Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles

Question accordingly agreed to.

Main Question, as amended, put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House welcomes the continuing support which Her Majesty's Government is giving to British Rail and recognises the need for Her Majesty's Government to complete its assessment of the most effective future rôle of our railway system as soon as possible.

PRIVATE BUSINESS

ASHDOWN FOREST BILL [Lords]

Order for Second Reading read.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Before calling on the hon. Member to move the Second Reading, I should inform the House that Mr. Speaker has not selected the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop).

7.10 p.m.

Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
It is customary, when addressing the House, to declare any interest. I am in the exactly contrary position, since none of Ashdown Forest is in my constituency. The only reason that I am dealing with this matter is that my hon. Friend the Member for East Grinstead (Mr. G. Johnson Smith) has ministerial responsibilities and my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lewes (Sir T. Beamish), who lives in the Ashdown Forest, is at the moment in Europe. My constituency is, therefore, nearest the scene of operations. If I could have taken part in the earlier debate I could easily have declared the interest that my constituents have in railways, but that is not in order now.
I am sure that every hon. Member will have noted that the Bill has come from the House of Lords. Before it went there, there was a period of 10 years when negotiations were going on about the way in which the Forest was to be run, and there was a report on 10th July 1972. A summary of that report was sent to all commoners, after which there were four general meetings and two group meetings. There have also been consultations and discussions with various bodies. Support for the Bill comes from the Department of the Environment, the Countryside Commission, the Council for the Protection of Rural England, the Commons, Open Spaces and Footpaths Preservation Society, and a voluntary body known as the Friends of Ashdown Forest, as well as the conservators.
The Bill therefore has wide support, in which case I do not imagine that the House would wish me to go through the 34 clauses and two schedules, or the

details of a lengthy petition submitted by commoners opposing the Bill. All I propose to do is deal with one or two matters that may be relevant to this debate.
Clause 14 sets out the arrangements for voting:
Notwithstanding anything in the award to the contrary the provisions set out in Schedule I of this Act shall have effect with respect to voting at meetings of the commoners.
That part of Schedule I which is referred to provides that
The requirements of the award with respect to the votes of the commoners at any meeting of the commoners may be varied in accordance with a resolution of the commoners passed at a meeting of the commoners at which not less than 21 days' notice has been given to the commoners and provided that the terms of the resolution have been set out in the notice.
So, once the Bill is passed there is no reason why any arrangements for voting that may or may not be regarded as satisfactory should not then be varied.

Mr. James Wellbeloved (Erith and Crayford): Before the hon. Gentleman leaves that point, will he confirm that there are 585 commoners on the roll but that only 17 control 55 per cent. of the voting rights for the election of conservators, and that therefore it is not correct to say that the commoners, on a majority vote, can decide to alter the arrangements for the election? That is already in the hands of a small minority who support the Bill against the wishes of the majority of the commoners.

Mr. Godman Irvine: If the hon. Gentleman will allow me to take my speech in my own way I hope that my arguments will persuade him that the situation is not quite so dreary as his question suggests.
The reason for the Bill being drafted in the way it is is that even at this moment there is no agreement among the commoners or those who are to vote as to what they would like put in its place. In promoting the Bill, the county council could have put forward a proposal that voting should take place in a certain way. What it has written into the Bill is a provision that the voting arrangements can be altered.
There is a division of opinion among those who have been consulted about


whether voting should be dealt with on a modified rateable value or should be on a basis of one man, one vote. No one can say that that is precisely what will be required. So far as I can discover, fewer than 24 Commoners exercise their full rights under the old Acts. Only three graze cattle, some have sheep, and one has two pigs.
Some people—I know that this does not include the hon. Gentleman the Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. Carol Johnson)—imagine that, simply because an area is a common, people have complete rights to do what they wish there. Schedule 2 lays down very limited uses to which Ashdown Forest can be put under the old Acts. It gives six fir clumps and two cricket grounds to which the public have access, in exchange for which we have Clause 21, which provides that
Subject to the provisions of the Ashdown Forest enactments and to the regulations made thereunder the public shall have access on foot to and over the forest for quiet recreation and enjoyment.

Mr. Charles Loughlin: Clause 20(3) refers to the lord of the manor, and in a previous clause there is reference to compensation for the lord of the manor. Will the hon. Gentleman tell us something about the lord of the manor, and how much it will cost the ratepayers to compensate him? What additional powers will the lord of the manor have under Clause 20(3)?

Mr. Godman Irvine: I cannot immediately identify the hon. Gentleman's reference, but if he will allow me to proceed on the basis on which I propose to argue in favour of the Bill, the matter will become clear, because I shall deal with finance in a moment.

Mr. Loughlin: I shall help the hon. Gentleman. I am referring to Clause 20(3) on page 14.

Mr. Godman Irvine: There are 26 lines in that part of the clause.

Mr. Loughlin: The hon. Gentleman should know the Bill.

Mr. Godman Irvine: It is a little difficult to follow exactly what the hon. Gentleman is dealing with. In a moment I shall deal with finance, and if the hon. Gentleman will wait I think he will find that that matter is covered.
I have made two points. One is that the original commoners are not making full use of the common as the old Acts entitle them to use it. Secondly, in exchange for certain rights the public will have much greater rights in future.
I come to the financial aspects. At present the East Sussex County Council has five representatives out of 20 on the body of conservators, and yet it is providing two-thirds of the income. When part of East Sussex goes to West Sussex, two fewer councils will be represented on that body, because they will be in West Sussex. It is proposed that there shall then be three fewer conservators. There will be nine representing the East Sussex County Council, out of a total of 17 on the body.

Mr. R. J. Maxwell-Hyslop: I understand that nine conservators are elected by the commoners. It is proposed that there shall be five. My hon. Friend has said that there will be three fewer commoners. I think that he will agree that five from nine is four.

Mr. Godman Irvine: The East Grinstead and Cuckfield Councils will be leaving the area because they will become part of West Sussex. I was saying that there would be only 17 conservators. There would be nine representing the East Sussex County Council, out of a total of 17, instead of five out of a total of 20. It is now providing two-thirds of the income.
Clause 21 gives the public much greater access, and therefore it is expected that more will have to be paid. Clause 24 provides that the county council will meet the expenses of the conservators, so it seems perfectly reasonable that the county should have increased representation.
If it is questioned whether we shall have democratic representation of the people using the forest, I believe it to be a reasonable proposition that the representatives on the county council are democratically elected, and that therefore no point can be taken that people who are not even using their rights of common are as democratically elected as the representatives of the people paying the money.
The purposes for which the Bill has been introduced are set out in Clause 16,


which states the duties of the conservators. as follows:
It shall be the duty of the Conservators subject to the provisions of this Act at all times as far as possible to regulate and manage the forest so as to protect the existing rights of common upon the forest, to protect the forest from encroachments, and to conserve it as a quiet and natural area of outstanding beauty.
The way in which the conservators are to carry out those duties are set out in Clauses 17–20. It is quite clear from a comparison of Clause 16 with the old regulations that it extends the rights of the public.
Therefore, I have no hesitation in recommending the Bill to the House. I hope that it will be given a Second Reading. If a contrary view were taken, the commoners would not be in a better position. We should simply maintain the status quo, apart from the fact that two councils will be leaving.
It is only a very short time before the East Sussex County Council will be working on a different basis. Nobody can forecast what view the next council will take about Ashdown Forest. Those of us who served on the Standing Committee considering the Countryside Bill—I see the hon. Gentleman the Member for Lewisham, South here—know exactly what arrangements are contained in that measure for dealing with such matters.
The position will be much better under the Bill than it would be if we did not have it, or if we waited to see what happened on another occasion. Therefore, I urge the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.

7.28 p.m.

Mr. Carol Johnson: I should like to say a few words about the Bill because it deals with the reorganisation of the administration of Ashdown Forest, and the Commons Society, of which I am chairman, is naturally interested in a forest area which is a large common of 6,400 acres. The society's interest has been recognised by the promoters of the Bill, for we were first consulted about the problems with which it is designed to deal as long ago as 1968. I should like the House to take particular note of that date, because similar discussions have taken place with other bodies

and other persons. The Bill has come forward after a very long labour.
The problems with which the conservators of the forest have been faced have occupied a great deal of their time and attention for some years. The Bill embodies many changes as compared with the original draft, changes for the better suggested as a result of widespread discussion.
Before I deal in detail with the Bill it might be helpful if I define in broad terms the society's general approach. The society has long been anxious to secure a legal public right of access. The long process established by the Commons Registration Act will eventually lead to that in the many cases where no such right now exists.
I emphasise that at present Ashdown Forest is a common where only limited rights of public access exist. I stress that because I and other hon. Members have received representations suggesting that public access is already provided by existing legislation. That is not so. There is a right of access at present only to certain clumps of trees, apart from the limited right to play cricket and other games. To the extent that this measure will create for the first time a legal public right of access on foot to all the forest for recreation and enjoyment, I give it a warm welcome on behalf of the Commons Society.
A legal right of access in these days is not enough to secure full recreational enjoyment. There must be adequate funds available to maintain the forest. Further, there must be a responsible management authority to do that and to introduce and operate the necessary regulations to that end. Another strong point in favour of the Bill is that the Bill gives additional powers to the conservators which will enable them to preserve, maintain, improve and regulate the forest more effectively than in the past. In previous legislation no such specific authority was included.
The society's general objectives are not intended to overrule the rights of commoners. However, it would appear that common rights have become less important in the context of Ashdown Forest. I understand that only two farmers still depend for their living on forest grazing. That surely is a minimal number out of a total of 590 commoners. I was given the


figure of 590 but some of my hon. Friends suggest that it is 585. Perhaps there is no need to squabble about that. I contrast the minimal use by commoners with the fact that the recreational use of the forest, especially in the summer, has increased enormously.
Let us now consider the other side of the coin—namely, the conservators' point of view. Their position under existing legislation has remained fairly static while the cost of running the forest has increased considerably. I am sure they have done their best to cope with the situation, but undoubtedly the forest has suffered through lack of funds. The rapidly growing use of the forest for recreational purposes has put an enormous strain on the environmental balance of the area.
The conservators have been unable to deal satisfactorily with the problem because of inadequate staff and financial stringency. How can they be expected to run and maintain, let alone improve and regulate, the forest to meet modern demands with their present staff of one part-time clerk, a superintendent and two rangers when dealing with an area of 6,400 acres? That seems to be the nub of the problem.
When the society was first consulted five years ago it expressed the view definitely and clearly that more public authorities should be brought in to help finance the forest. It had in mind the coastal towns of Brighton, Eastbourne and Hastings. A stroll along the fronts of those resorts will show the many coach tours advertising excursions to Ashdown Forest. In addition, hundreds of visitors come to the forest by car from the whole of the south of England, including the Greater London area. In general it can be said that Ashdown Forest is part of the tourist trade of the South Coast. It seems fair and just that an area which so directly benefits should contribute.
If that argument is accepted, contributions by the coastal authorities should and would mean substantial conservator representation. That is precisely what the Bill provides. That is particularly important as the main burden in the future will fall on the new county council. In 1968 it was not possible to foresee the terms of the Local Government Act 1972 and the incorporation of the seaside county

boroughs to which I have referred in a large new county. However, the basic principle is precisely the same and it is still felt that more local authorities' money from a wider area should be obtained for the care of the forest.
If we accept that extra local government money must be obtained, there must be extra local government representation. That is only fair and, I believe, in the long-term interests of the forest.

Mr. Loughlin: If there is a need—and I agree with my hon. Friend that there is—to maintain environmental areas of this kind, is there any objection to the forest going into the control of the Forestry Commission?

Mr. Johnson: That raises a much wider issue than is provided for by the Bill and it requires a great deal of consideration and thought. I am not sure that the Forestry Commission would welcome that.
There is no clear evidence that the majority of commoners oppose the Bill—

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: Surely the fact that over 60 per cent. of the registered commoners have signed the petition duly deposited in the House opposing the Bill is the most conclusive evidence there could possibly be in that respect?

Mr. Johnson: They have also signed other documents which are in conflict with the petition. It is difficult for outsiders to distinguish between the two. I am satisfied on the information which has been given to me that there is no clear evidence that the majority of commoners oppose the Bill. I sympathise with those who take the view that they must oppose it because the new arrangements, by reducing the commoners' representation on the board, may result in effective control passing to a remote county council.
Let us look a little more closely at that grievance. It cannot be disputed that in the past the commoners have had representation. That is because they had an economic interest in the common. However, all the evidence suggests that that interest has declined so materially that it is no longer a relevant consideration. Certainly the majority of commoners no longer exercise their commonable rights


and interest and it seems that they regard the forest more as local inhabitants than as commoners.
It could be argued that the commoners' motives are rather self-centred. It is true that a rigid enforcement of all the commoners' rights might well be inimical to the proper management of the forest as a place of natural beauty and to its proper use by the public.

Mr. Wellbeloved: I am sure that, with his great use, expertise and understanding of the public's need and right to use the countryside, my hon. Friend will agree with me that it is imperative that the rights of local people, whether or not they be protected by commoner rights, should be considered so that there should be a complete avoidance of conflict between the general public using the countryside and those who live adjacent to beauty spots. Therefore, the commoners' interests are the public's interest. Unless both act together, both will lose out in the long run.

Mr. Johnson: I intend to make at the conclusion of my speech the first point which my hon. Friend made. As to his second point, I was trying to emphasise that the interest of many of the commoners is as members of the public and not as commoners, because their commonable rights are no longer exercised in a material and relevant way.
My information is that, apart from the two commoners who exercise grazing rights—the two farmers to whom I referred—not more than 12 commoners seriously exercise their rights to estovers—that is, to take wood—and only three take brakes or litter. It cannot be said that their interests as commoners will be seriously undermined by the Bill. In so far as they have rights as members of the public, these will be enormously increased by the measure.
I sympathise with the comment made by my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Wellbeloved). There is a general wish for local participation in the enjoyment of the forest both by commoners in the legal sense and by other persons. I suggest that this could be met by the new conservators co-opting representatives of local organisa-

tions, such as the Friends of Ashdown Forest, on to the various committees. This they have power to do under Clause 13 of the Bill. It would allay a great deal of apprehension if someone could say on their behalf, either tonight or in Committee, that they propose to do this.
To sum up, I hope that the House will give the Bill a Second Reading. It will create for the first time a legal right for every member of the public to visit the forest on foot for recreational purposes. It will provide the necessary funds to enable the conservators to meet the widening public needs both by the provision of more staff and by the protection, improvement and regulation of the amenities that the forest has to offer. It creates a wide and representative body of management which can be trusted to exercise its new powers in the broad public interest. If there are minor criticisms of the Bill, there will be ample opportunity to pursue them in Committee. I have no reason to feel that any reasonable criticism will not be most carefully considered by the promoters.

7.42 p.m.

Mr. R. J. Maxwell-Hyslop: The decision of the Chair on the dilatory amendment means that at the conclusion of the debate we shall vote on the main Question, "That the Bill be read a Second time". It is usual on the Second Reading of Private Bills to distinguish for the benefit of the House the principles properly involved in Second Reading and the matters which are more properly examined by a Committee if the House approves the general principles. I intend to honour that convention of the House but to put forward the reason why I believe that the Committee should he spared this task and why the Bill should be refused a Second Reading by the House.
There is a general principle of law in this country that a person comes into court with clean hands. There should be a corollary that a person comes into Parliament with clean hands if he asks for greatly extended powers over his fellow men by special private legislation, and that is precisely what the Bill does. Have the promoters of the Bill come into Parliament with clean hands? I suggest that that is exactly what they have not done.
The Bill is promoted by the county council and it has the support of a completely unrepresentative group of people termed the conservators whose function, which is clearly defined, is frustrated by the electoral system. Whether there are at this moment 582 or 590 commoners is not material. What is material is that, under the system for electing conservators, 17 out of between 580 and 590 commoners have 55 per cent. of the votes but pay only 9 per cent. of the forest rate. The remaining 560-plus commoners pay 91 per cent. of the forest rate but have only 45 per cent. of the votes.
My hon. Friend the Member for Rye (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine) rather guilelessly directed our attention to the provision in the Bill which enables the commoners to alter the voting system. So it does—on the present basis. Therefore, this corrupt and archaic rotten borough system of voting can be used to block any such reform. If the Bill embodied a rational system of voting, we could rely on the commoners to look after their own interests as they wish, but it does not.

Mr. Carol Johnson: Is the hon. Gentleman able to say definitely that the commoners as a whole agree upon a specific way of voting which can be embodied in the Bill?

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: No. No such proposition can he advanced. One of the well-established principles in the House and in the country is one man, one vote. The present system, which is so archaic that I imagine few would defend it, is that the rate per acre goes down the larger the holding, but the vote goes up the larger the holding. The promoters are explicitly maintaining this extraordinary proposition by the form in which they have drafted the Bill.
If we pass the Bill into law, we shall perpetuate a blocking system. It is no use anyone purporting to give undertakings about what conservators who have not been elected will do if the Bill is passed. The history of undertakings given during Second Reading debates on Priviate Bills is, to put it mildly, an unhappy one. The largest single corpus of Private Bill legislation is that which enabled the railway system to be built. At the direction of the Board of Trade

—or whatever it was called then—written into all those Bills was a requirement for the directors of the companies who would be empowered under the Bills to give a personal and collective undertaking under the companies' seals never to allow more than one engine in steam on any one section of line at a given time. The history of railway accidents shows that those undertakings were generally and flagrantly ignored, and I am not aware of a single prosecution ever having taken place.
The parliamentary agent acting for the promoters was told of this manifest and important objection considerably before the Bill received its First Reading in the House of Lords. He was advised not to introduce the Bill into either House of Parliament until this unacceptable and corrupt system of voting had been remedied. It was entirely open to the promoters to write into the Bill before introducing it into the House of Lords a specific correction of the abuses. The promoters chose not to do so.
The fact that this Bill arrives here still containing an utterly unacceptable voting system and not providing the machinery by which that can be remedied without the assent of the 17 people who can block the rest of the commoners at the moment is not the fault of the commoners who oppose the Bill. It is the fault of the sponsors. That is why they should take the Bill away and save Parliament further pains until they have remedied this defect.
There seems to be an element of disagreement between my hon. Friend the Member for Rye and the hon. Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. Carol Johnson) who sponsored the Bill. My hon. Friend complained that the commoners were not exercising all their rights while the hon. Gentleman complained that it would be unreasonable if they did.

Mr. Carol Johnson: That is a complete misrepresentation of what I said. I pointed out that they were not exercising their rights at present. I said that, if 590 commoners sought to exercise all their rights, they would obviously interfere with the public enjoyment which I understand we all want.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: I entirely agree. That is the point I was making. The


hon. Gentleman said that it would be unreasonable for the commoners to exercise all their rights. My hon. Friend appeared to complain that they were not exercising all their rights. I know of no hon. Member who exercises all his rights. How many hon. Members have ever gone to the Vote Office once a year and obtained the accounts of the Royal Patriotic Fund Corporation and examined them? That is one of our rights. The fact that we do not exercise it surely does not mean that we ought to apply for the stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds.

Mr. William Wilson: Surely it is not the law of the land that if a commoner does not exercise his rights he loses them. A commoner has his rights in perpetuity.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: I agree. That is the opposite to the point made by the promoters, which was that unless a commoner exercised his rights they should be attenuated or removed. I agree that the commoners are being reasonable in the exercise of their rights. To exercise them fully and to the letter would cause inconvenience to the public. If everyone in society exercised all his rights all the time, no one could exercise many of them for any of the time.
The principle on which we should determine whether the Bill receives a Second Reading is not embodied in Committee points. There is a petition signed by the time it was deposited, by 353 of the 580-odd commoners. That is 61 per cent. of them. Others have since indicated their support for it, although it is too late for those signatures to be formally appended to the deposited petition.
The promoters of the Bill have knowingly, wittingly and intentionally introduced a Bill which perpetuates an unacceptable voting system. The conservators with whom they negotiated were elected under that corrupt system. The five conservators to be elected by the commoners will continue to be elected, if the Bill receives a Second Reading, under a corrupt voting system unless the 17 people who control 55 per cent. of the votes will otherwise. There is no means of making them do so and nothing in the Bill makes them do so.
The healthy thing for the House to do, therefore, is to say "Take this Bill away. We refuse it a Second Reading. Cut out of it that which is totally unacceptable to the general principles which are common to both sides of the House." In my judgment, that is why the Bill should be refused a Second Reading.

7.55 p.m.

Mr. James Wellbeloved (Erith and Crayford): I had better declare my interest, as other hon. Members have done. I am the national vice-president of one of the major voluntary organisations which uses the countryside for leisure and sport. I join my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. Carol Johnson) in trying to ensure the right of free public access, subject to certain safeguards for local inhabitants, to all beauty spots in the country.
I differ from my hon. Friend in believing that it is necessary, in the discharge of this desirable aim, to strike a careful balance between the rights of the public to enjoy the countryside and the rights of those who live in beauty soots to enjoy the quietness of their area without having it destroyed by those like myself, from the great metropolis of London and other major centres, who go into the country at weekends to enjoy ourselves in what is someone else's back garden.
That is precisely the case with Ashdown Forest. It is a place of great beauty, giving pleasure to many thousands of people in south-east England, and south-east London particularly. I want that enjoyment to continue, but I also want to see a balance struck between the desires of those who wish to visit the place and the anxities of those who have banded themselves together in a Commoners' Association for Ashdown Forest to protect their interests and to see that they and we—the outsiders—can mutually enjoy this great national asset.
The only difference between my hon. Friend and I is that we take a slightly different view of the emphasis that ought to be placed on the rights of local people to be properly represented under a democratic system on the Board of Conservators for the Ashdown Forest. I am advised that the Ashdown Forest Act 1885 enshrines free right of access by the public to the footpaths and glade lands


of the forest and that, in practice, since 1885 that free access has been maintained. I do not believe that a new Act is necessary either to enlarge or to maintain what is already enshrined in statute law and in the normal custom and practice of the usage of Ashdown Forest by the general public. On that ground, I do not believe that the Bill can be justified. It is not necessary.

Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine: The matter is set out clearly on page 21 of the Bill. I summarised the rights of the public under the 1885 Act. I ask the hon. Gentleman to modify his observations, because such rights are limited.

Mr. Wellbeloved: The Act talks about having regard to the effects of the neighbourhood as well as to private interests, and goes on to specify free access and talk about local inhabitants. The "local inhabitants" definition has been considerably enlarged by custom and practice so as to justify the words that I have used. In his opening remarks the hon. Member for Rye (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine) gave the impression that the commoners who are to be affected by the Bill are not commoners as originally envisaged. Apparently, certain commoners have two or three pigs and a number of cattle, but most of them are domestic house occupiers and are therefore not the sort of people the original arrangements were designed to protect. He gave the dates of a number of meetings that were held to explain to the commoners the purposes of the Bill. I am informed that two of the meetings took place—on 6th January 1973 and 16th February 1973—without the Bill then being available. A verbal statement was made to the commoners and they were asked to accept something that they had not had the benefit of studying in written form and in detail.
I do not believe that it lies with the hon. Member to pray in aid these public meetings when there was no firm proposal in writing upon which the commoners could express a view.

Mr. Godman Irvine: All I said was that a full report of the board was made on 10th July 1972 and that that was available.

Mr. Wellbeloved: As I understand it, the report did not embody the details of

the Bill, and it is to the Bill that the commoners are objecting. It is, therefore, clear that they were not properly consulted by the promoters of the Bill before it was presented to Parliament. In itself, that justifies grave anxiety among hon. Members and should be sufficient to cause us to stop and think before we give the Bill an unopposed Second reading.
The hon. Member for Rye said that the people who supported the Bill included the county council, the Department of the Environment, and someone else. Good as those bodies may be, their support does not, in itself, justify the Bill. It can be justified only if it can be shown to be necessary, and if it can be shown not to cause grave public anxiety in respect of the matters in which it claims to seek to allay such anxieties. I shall not take up the points raised by the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) except for what he called the corrupt practice of election of the conservators. Having briefly studied the situation, I concur with some of his judgments. It seems intolerable that this Parliament should be asked to enact legislation that will mean that the power for the appointment of conservators will lie with 17 commoners out of 585 or 595, whichever is the correct number. That is something of which we cannot approve. It is therefore not acceptable for the hon. Member for Rye to say that under the Bill the commoners can meet and alter their election system. We all know that they cannot do that as things stand. That is a basic requirement for adjustment at some stage or another, be it in this Bill or in some other, before we can even consider allowing it to have a Third reading—if it gets that far.
There is another aspect of voting rights to which I wish to draw attention. I am advised that the system of voting provides for either the male or the female member of a household to attend a meeting of the commoners and cast only one vote per household. From a quick reading, Schedule 1 appears to seek to alter that position, so that only the registered commoner will be entitled to attend and vote, and it will require an involved system of the appointment of a proxy for the female of the household to attend and vote.
This House has been endeavouring to promote equal rights between men and women. We have passed Bills about equal pay. As a Parliament we are committed to a rapid advancement towards equality between the sexes. That is a good enough reason why we should ponder before we pass the Bill. In those circumstances it would be wrong to act contrary to general public legislation by passing a private Bill of this nature.
Representation will consist of nine conservators appointed from among the elected members of the county council, two conservators appointed from the members of the local council and five appointed under the proposed system of election of conservators. I should like that balance of representation altered. I should like to see an increase in the commoners' representation at the expense of of the representation of the county council. I do not suggest a substantial increase in the local district council representation. I believe that the county council representatives can bring a broader view to the deliberations of the conservators. But there should be a reduction in its representation to provide a better chance of local interests forming a majority.

Mr. Carol Johnson: Is my hon. Friend seriously suggesting that with the financial burden imposed by the Bill on the county council, the council should accept the exercise of rights by a body on which it did not have a majority?

Mr. Wellbeloved: If I understand the position correctly, in the formation of its rates estimates the county council will provide for the levying of a rate for the use of the conservators. The amount of money that the conservators can spend will already have been determined by the council. My hon. Friend's point is not valid, because in its financial provision the county council already has a veto on the amount of money that it will provide to the conservators from the general rates.
The other point of general principle is one which arises on Clause 17(2) in which it is laid down that
The Conservators shall not under the powers conferred on them by subsection (1) of this section keep enclosed at any one time more than 100 acres of the forest without the consent of the Secretary of State.

Under that subsection the Secretary of State will have the responsibility of giving authority if the conservators at any one time wish to enclose more than the 100 acres specified. Will the Secretary of State undertake that, before exercising those powers, he will consult the commoners' association? On this matter of enclosures I believe that we must exercise very great care.

Mr. Loughlin: I very much appreciate the point made by my hon. Friend, but even if the present Secretary of State gave that undertaking he could not bind future Secretaries of State.

Mr. Wellbeloved: My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin) has the advantage of having been a Minister. It may be, therefore, that his faith in the process of government has been diminished. As a humble back bencher, however, I have sufficient faith in that process to believe that if the present Secretary of State gave such an undertaking it would be duly recorded and that, at least, a civil servant would draw it to the attention of any successor of the right hon. Gentleman.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Reginald Eyre): I may be able to put the hon. Gentleman's mind at rest at once. Any transfer of land is subject under that clause to the consent of the Secretary of State, who must hold a local inquiry if a commoner objects. That will apply to the present Secretary of State and to all future Secretaries of State.

Mr. Wellbeloved: I must confess that I had not grasped that that was the case under Clause 17(2), but I accept what the hon. Gentleman says.
I move to another general point which is contained in Clause 18. This clause and the principle enshrined in it cause considerable anxiety to the commoners, quite apart from the anxiety which it causes my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, South, myself and everyone else interested in the preservation of the countryside for the use of the general public.
There is a fear amongst the commoners that the clause will give general powers for the commercial exploitation of Ashdown Forest. I am sure that if there is one matter about which my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, South and I


are likely to agree, it is that we want to see beauty spots such as Ashdown Forest open to the general public but preserved from the evils of commercial exploitation which would completely destroy the beauty that we seek to enjoy. I hope that during this debate we shall hear a little more from a supporter of the Bill about what is foreseen as coming from the operation of that clause.

Mr. Clinton Davis: As one who is an expert on the subject of assemblies, will my hon. Friend refer to Clause 23, which is very reminiscent of the Isle of Wight County Council Bill, on which he indicated to the House some considerable expertise? Does not this provision offer to an undemocratic group of people the right to say that any number of people exceeding 100 may not assemble in the forest for any purpose which they consider offensive, whether or not it is an offensive purpose?

Mr. Wellbeloved: I lived in fear that my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, Central (Mr. Clinton Davis) might put that very question to me. With my hon. Friend, I was a protagonist during the course of the passage through this House of the Isle of Wight County Council Bill dealing with the right of the public to assemble overnight in an open space for the purpose of a lawful occasion. In the context of the Ashdown Forest Bill, I do not see any grave danger in Clause 23 in respect of large assemblies, though my hon. Friend is right to raise the point. I agree immediately that my knowledge of Ashdown Forest is limited. However, in my judgment it is not a place which would be suitable for overnight assemblies of the kind which my hon. Friend and I tried so hard to protect on a previous occasion. But I accept that the principle is there. Therefore, if the Bill gets a Second Reading, it will be right for the Select Committee to look carefully at this provision.

Mr. Clinton Davis: I was thinking of people who might want to make a short protest, perhaps, about blood sports. If a majority of the conservators were opposed to that object, they might say, "No. We do not want that sort of assembly here".

Mr. Wellbeloved: That may be the case. But I am sure that this provision

would not deter those who are dedicated to the abolition of cruelty to animals from assembling in the Ashdown Forest if they thought that that would bring relief to the suffering of dumb animals.

Mr. Davis: It puts them in difficulty.

Mr. Wellbeloved: I agree that it puts them in difficulty. However, I am sure that my hon. Friend will deploy the arguments on the civil liberties point if and when he succeeds in catching your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
It is only fair to say that from my limited knowledge of the Ashdown Forest, because of its make-up, the trees and the lack of wide open spaces, it is not the sort of area where several thousand people would assemble overnight for a pop festival or to camp. Therefore, I do not see any great danger in that clause. But I am grateful to my hon. Friend for allowing me to explain my position.

Mr. Eyre: I regret that perhaps I was too eager to assist the hon. Gentleman in relation to Clause 17. My reply applied to Clause 20. Referring specifically to Clause 17(2), as the hon. Gentleman pointed out, the consent of the Secretary of State is required in the circumstances described in that subsection. But I believe that there is no doubt that any Secretary of State would exercise his power under this provision with responsibility and obviously would consult as widely as possible. In the circumstances, certainly this would include consulting commoners before coming to a decision and giving his consent as required under the subsection.

Mr. Wellbeloved: When the hon. Gentleman intervened earlier, I wondered whether we were not a little astray of the point that we were both trying to make, but I deferred to his expertise. I am grateful that he has so quickly and frankly put the record straight. If the Bill becomes law I should be quite happy to accept his assurance on the point. I am sure that it will be of considerable interest to the commoners to know that he has given it, and I hope that the civil servants will duly draw it to the attention of any successor Secretary of State should he be faced with such a decision.
I believe that a number of principles are involved in the Bill and that there is every reason to hesitate in giving it an unopposed Second Reading. It is not an unopposed Bill. It will go to the Opposed Bills Committee upstairs, and I hope that between now and its re-emergence on the Floor of the House the promoters will take the opportunity to come to some accommodation in consultation with the commoners as a whole, because if the Bill returns virtually as it is now it will not receive an unopposed passage through the House, and it may well not make the statute book this year.
Like the hon. Member for Tiverton, I am anxious that a proper balance should be achieved between the local and public interest and I hope that this chance will be taken to see that that legitimate and desirable objective is achieved.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: I do not want to leave the impression that that would meet the point of principle on which the hon. Gentleman and I are agreed, because it cannot, in the rules of order, be dealt with by amendment in Committee. That is why I think it rather a waste of time to let the Bill go to Committee.

Mr. Wellbeloved: I have not given the Bill the detailed study which I know the hon. Gentleman has. If that be the case, we have nothing to fear. It will not pass this House.

8.22 p.m.

Mr. Martin Maddan: It is a striking fact that all hon. Members concerned in the area of Ashdown Forest, or who are neighbours to it, support the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Mr. Bowden) represents the biggest county borough in the area, and he also supports it. Therefore, we must address ourselves to the points of anxiety which commoners have expressed and to the petition they have sent, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) referred. It is always wise to secure one's opportunity to raise points in the passage of a private Bill by petitioning in due time. If one has not done it in due time, one does not have opportunity to raise such points.
From my knowledge, I doubt whether a majority of the petitioners have informed criticisms to make of the pro-

visions of the Bill. It is striking that the majority—340 of them—have agreed to a modified rateable value basis for the elections amongst commoners. But there can be no such change in the method of election amongst the commoners unless a Bill goes through Parliament because, at the moment, they are stuck with voting on the acreage basis.
Hon. Members have made a major point about the election rights of the commoners. It is important to say—and I do so with the authority of the promoters—that a majority of the commoners, whether by acreage or by number, agree to a modified rateable value basis, but they cannot implement it until Parliament enacts a Bill to change the present provisions. The fact that not all are agreed leads to difficulties. That is why the Bill is drawn as it is. It gives the commoners the opportunity to agree on a form different from the present, and I hope that they will.

Mr. Wellbeloved: Will the hon. Gentleman tell us whether the 17 commoners who control 55 per cent. of the votes, or a majority of them, are willing to see a change in the electoral system?

Mr. Maddan: Yes, I am happy to say that they are. The arithmetic is plain. The majority of the commoners, whether by acreage or by number, support a modified rateable value basis for voting. I am happy to give the hon. Gentleman that assurance.
The hon. Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin) referred to compensation payable to the lord of the manor. He may, understandably, have misunderstood the purport of the provision. All the soil in Ashdown Forest is owned by the lord of the manor.

Mr. Loughlin: Who is he?

Mr. Maddan: He is the noble Lord, Lord Buckhurst. All the provision does is to give the conservators a right to buy or sell a pocket of land for marginal adjustments in the boundary of the forest, but the chances are that Lord Buckhurst will receive no compensation whatever. It is most likely that if anything happens at all it will be a pure swapping arrangement.
The hon. Member for Erith and Cray-ford (Mr. Wellbeloved) also raised the question of wives voting. I cannot tell


him about that. But I do not think that we would want to take away the rights of wives, and if what the hon. Gentleman says is so I think that he will agree that that is very much a point for the Select Committee to consider.
The purpose of Clause 18 is to strike a proper balance between local interests and the general public interest in the enjoyment of Ashdown Forest, and to place the responsibility for the exercise of expenditure where the responsibility for providing the finance rests. That must be a proper and sound basis on which to proceed.

Mr. Clinton Davis: I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman, as a local Member, would apply his mind to Clause 23? Am I right in supposing that it provides a complete power of veto in the conservators to say that a group of 100 people—not very many—who may wish to assemble in the forest may not do so?

Mr. Maddan: I am not speaking with the authority of the promoters, but I think it does, and I think the reason is that Ashdown Forest is very liable to fire. There is an enormous amount of bracken, and the like, and I imagine that it would be extremely dangerous to encourage large assemblies of people there. I say that only by way of a general observation and not on the authority of the promoters.

Mr. William Wilson: I wonder whether the hon. Member can tell us about Clause 23(2), the last few words of which are
shall not grant such consent without the approval of the local authorities".
Can he tell us how many local authorities' consent would have to be obtained?

Mr. Maddan: Again, I do not speak with the authority of the promoters, but I expect that for instance, the fire authorities, the police, and the sanitary authorities would be concerned. I take it that this is what that means.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: To save any misunderstanding, hon. Members could read the definitions in Clause 2—the interpretation clause—in which "the local authorities" are defined. They do not include the fire authorities or the police authorities, as my hon. Friend has suggested.

Mr. Maddan: That is a very happy conclusion. Hon. Members can look at that and not listen to me any more at all—except to hear me say that when this Bill is enacted, as I very much hope it will be, it will be to the benefit both of the local people in Ashdown Forest and of those many thousands of other people who wish to enjoy it.

8.30 p.m.

Mr. Charles Loughlin: I want to deal with the Bill in a serious way, but before I go on to my main points I should like to go back to Clause 23 to which the hon. Member for Hove (Mr. Maddan) referred. Clause 23 is quite clear and categorical. It gives to the conservators—the conservators are not merely elected members of a local authority but are commoners without any public accountability in this respect—the right to refuse to allow more than 100 people to come together in the forest.
The hon. Member says that there may be very good reason for that: that because of its bracken Ashdown Forest has a great fire risk. I live in the Forest of Dean. We have a fire risk, but we do not exclude any assemblies. The Forestry Commission does not attempt to exclude persons more than 100 in number on the ground that there is a fire risk. In practice there can be no greater fire risk than there is in the Forest of Dean. I would assume that Clause 23 is put into the Bill deliberately; and it is put into the Bill quite possibly on the grounds referred to by my hon. Friend in his intervention.
I shall deal with certain aspects not of the preservation of the rights of ordinary people to enjoy the environment and to enjoy the forest but of enshrining in a Bill the preservation of the rights of a particular individual. If the Bill says that the conservators have a right without let or hindrance to refuse to allow more than 100 people to assemble in the forest, we as Parliament want to know why. Is this clause aimed at certain categories of people? If it is not so aimed, why have it in the Bill? It may well be true, as one hon. Member has said, that Ashdown Forest does not lend itself to pop festivals but, when I look at the rights granted by the Bill to the conservators, I think it might be


possible at some time that the forest would lend itself to pop festivals.

Mr. Peter Hordern: If it were to lend itself to an assembly of that kind, it could do so only on the assumption that a large part of the forest should disappear.

Mr. Loughlin: If the hon. Gentleman will look at the Bill, he will see that it gives to the conservators the right of felling trees, so the hon. Gentleman should not make that point unless he has read the Bill. It is possible that the opposition may well be against people who are opposed to bloodsports. I do not know whether there is any hunting in Ashdown Forest, but I am assuming that there is. If more than 100 people were to go along to oppose a hunt of any kind, it is not sufficient for this House to say, as the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Wellbeloved) has said, that if those people were so dedicated they would be prepared to challenge the law. It is not for this House to produce a situation in which we deliberately place people in jeopardy of the law. It is for this House to ensure that we do not do so.
Clause 23, therefore, really ought to come out of the Bill altogether, because non-elected persons have no right to say how many people should come together. It might be a matter of a young farmers' association or a Young Conservatives' association. We might have a Socialist on the board of conservators, and in that case they might be politically vindictive against the Young Conservatives. Are we then to place the Young Conservatives in the position of having to step outside the law to defend their rights?

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: One should point out, of course, that the restriction applies to a hunt as well as to those opposed to hunting.

Mr. Loughlin: That may be so, but there is the possibility that there will be fewer than 100 people on the hunt or there might be more than 100 who are opposed to it. I am simply making the point that it is not good enough for the promoters of any kind of Bill to bring before the House a Bill containing clauses to which fundamental objection

can be taken by a substantial part of this House.

Mr. Maddan: I might be able to help the hon. Gentleman by saying that the purpose of the clause basically is to see that Ashdown Forest is preserved as a place where members of the public can pursue quiet and natural enjoyment; and if there were large assemblies which would disturb the quiet and natural enjoyment on the part of members of the public, that would not be in the general interest. I believe that the hon. Gentleman would accept this.

Mr. Loughlin: I must point out to the hon. Gentleman that that is the kind of argument that has been advanced by those who have sought to stop people coming together throughout the ages. In particular, in relation to pop festivals, precisely that kind of argument was used on the Isle of Wight County Council Bill. I say that there must be a purpose for the clause.

Mr. Wellbeloved: As far as pop festivals are concerned, my hon. Friend will be aware that the Department has recently issued a code for use at pop festival assemblies, and that code would apply if the Ashdown Forest were to be used for such an assembly. I do not think it ever will be, because it is not a suitable place in which to have a pop festival. I appreciate and understand my hon. Friend's references to other types of assembly, but I can assure him that it would not be a suitable place for a pop assembly and, therefore, he should not waste too much time deploying his argument on the basis of pop assemblies. I believe that he is on better ground with the other types of assembly he has in mind.

Mr. Loughlin: I do not want to deploy that argument any further. I merely draw attention to Clause 22(4)(c), which refers to
the rights of sporting of the lord of the manor".
It may be that we there find the clue to the reason for the existence of Clause 23.
Before moving to the main burden of my opposition to the Bill, I want to draw attention to Clause 17(2), in respect of the consent of the Secretary of State to the enclosure of more than 100 acres of


the forest. In his first intervention the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment said that any decision by the Secretary of State would be subject to an inquiry. In his second intervention he did not make clear that no inquiry is required in relation to this provision in the Bill. All he is asking the House to do is to accept his assurance on behalf of his right hon. Friend that any future Secretary of State would take the same attitude as does the present one. In the light of the history of this House, the Under-Secretary of State surely cannot give such an undertaking.

Mr. Eyre: I agree with what the hon. Gentleman said about a public inquiry, but I did not make a presumption in quite the way the hon. Gentleman chose to imply. I explained that the words
without the consent of the Secretary of State
would mean the present Secretary of State. I am sure that any Secretary of State would act responsibly in the exercise of his powers.

Mr. Loughlin: That is an entirely different matter, because what "acting responsibly" means to me might not be the same as it means to the Minister.
I have two fundamental objections to the Bill. The first point was made in an admirable speech by the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) on the acreage voting system. The hon. Member for Hove attempted to answer that point by saying that there were provisions to cover this aspect of the matter. But why was not such a provision written into the Bill? This is on the same lines as the old argument of the difference between permissive and mandatory legislation. This matter could have been written into the Bill without any difficulty at all. The attitude of the hon. Member for Hove was that it was not written into the Bill because there was not unanimity among the commoners. His view was: "Give us the Bill and we shall achieve unanimity".

Mr. Maddan: There is an important distinction. The burden of my argument is that the best thing to do is to give the commoners the right to do what they think best, even though they would have to do it under the present voting system. I explained to the House what the

majority of commoners, whether by acreage or numbers, think is the proper thing to do. In those circumstances, I believe that it is possible for the House to give those powers and for the matter to be sorted out locally rather than for us to railroad through detailed provisions.

Mr. Loughlin: The hon. Gentleman may have forgotten his reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Cray-ford. When my hon. Friend intervened, the hon. Genleman gave the House an assurance that the 17 commoners who control the voting would, if we passed the Bill, agree to change the whole voting system.

Mr. Maddan: I referred to the majority of commoners, whether by number or by acreage. I cannot tell the hon. Gentleman in detail about each of the 17 commoners to whom he is referring.

Mr. Loughlin: In that case, my argument is valid. The system appears to be based upon one acre, one vote. I have heard some arguments about democracy, but now we hear about one acre, one vote. The more acres someone has, the more votes he has. We are going back to the twelfth century, not the eighteenth.

Mr. John Golding: Has my hon. Friend considered what effect it would have on local government if there were a system of one vote per £1 of rateable value?

Mr. Loughlin: In that event I should have a large number of votes, because I have the highest-rated house in my village. It is not the best house, but it is the highest rated. I know that, because I have checked the valuation list.
I do not need to deploy the argument at any length because the hon. Member for Tiverton spelled out in great detail that, even though we may get assurances from those hon. Members who are in favour of the Bill, if the provision is not written into the measure we have no guarantee that it will be carried out. If it were possible for those who support the Bill to come to the conclusion, after it was tabled, that they would be prepared to make a change so that there would be a more democratic form of voting, I suggest that they withdraw the Bill now and bring it back to the House when they


have reached agreement on the voting issue.
This is, after all, the first step towards the Bill's becoming law. Those who support the measure will have to deal with the voting issue when the Bill is considered in Committee, and again when it comes back to this House. They will face the same difficulty. We shall be here to deal with this issue. We are now at the beginning of July, and the Bill will not go through in its present form. The best advice that I can give to supporters of the Bill is to withdraw it, get agreement on the voting system, and then bring it back to the House. If such agreement is reached, there will be a much more democratic system of voting and it will be acceptable to the commoners in the area.
There may have been some change in the attitude of the commoners, but I understand that about 80 per cent. of them originally opposed the Bill. If the hon. Gentleman's figures are correct, 60 per cent. of them still oppose the Bill because of the proposed voting system.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: More than 60 per cent. of them signed the petition before the date on which it had to be deposited. Since then many more have indicated their support for the petition, but they cannot formally sign it.

Mr. Loughlin: My information is that originally more than 80 per cent, of the commoners opposed the Bill on the issue of voting. If that is so, the sponsors of the Bill cannot expect the Bill to get an easy passage if, after framing and depositing it, they inform some hon. Members that they are prepared to do something that they ought to have done in the first instance and rewrite a substantial part of this measure. As I understand it, the only way that that can be done is for the Bill to be withdrawn and resubmitted with new provisions. Unless that is done, I promise the sponsors that there will be a great deal of opposition when the Bill goes through its remaining stages.
I have, perhaps, a more fundamental objection to the Bill than that. I happen to have in my constituency the Forest of Dean, which is, in practice, the kind of amenity area about which my hon.
Friend the Member for Erith and Cray-ford spoke. He knows how well the Forest of Dean is looked after by the Forestry Commission. Although, at times, there is a dilemma in trying to balance the interests of the generality of the public with the interests of those who live in the area, the Forestry Commission has been able to ensure that, apart from certain portions of the forest which have to be enclosed for the purpose of maintaining the correct balance, the greater proportion of the forest is there for the benefit and enjoyment of not only those who live in it but who visit it from elsewhere. It is an enormous success.
By virtue of my experience of the Forest of Dean, therefore, I am in favour of trying to safeguard areas of this kind to ensure that we do not destroy or be spoil the whole of this small island on which we live. In this part of the world, perhaps, there is more reason to ensure that Ashdown Forest is retained for the benefit of the community who go there than there is for almost anywhere else in Britain. I take it that Ashdown Forest is within the area known as the South-East. The South-East is almost choked with industry and population.
In the Forest of Dean we have the Forestry Commission, and not conservators but verderers—a very ancient court. They are elected, but the Forestry Commission is directly responsible to the Minister. If I have a problem in the Forest of Dean, as I often have, and if I discuss it with the Forestry Commission but I am not satisfied with the policy as pursued by the commission. I can then go to the Minister. The Forestry Commission accepts that, and very often, when we have reached that point of impasse, I say to the commission's representative, "I am sorry, but I shall have to take this matter to the Minister". There is never the slightest straining of relations when I take that action.
I have looked at the Bill, however. To whom could anyone go, and what right would a Member of Parliament have in trying to redress any irregularities that may occur in the future once the Bill becomes law? I have full access to the Forestry Commission, and the commission has full accountability, but I cannot see any public accountability


enshrined in the Bill. Where there is an admixture of local authorities and private persons public accountability, except in the fringe areas, goes out of the window.
I come now to my major objection. I asked earlier who was the lord of the manor. I referred to certain clauses in the Bill and assumed that the hon. Gentleman who was presenting the Bill would have been prepared to tell us something about the lord of the manor. This is a fundamental issue involved in Second Reading. The hon. Member for Hove (Mr. Maddan) has told us that the lord of the manor is Lord Buckhurst and that he felt sure that it would be a matter of swapping pockets of land.
It is interesting to go through clause after clause in which there is reference to the lord of the manor. According to Clause 2 this means the lord of the manor of Duddleswell for the time being and, in relation to the lord of the manor, his nominee means such person as the lord of the manor shall nominate in writing, such nomination to be deposited with the clerk of the conservators.
One can go through the Bill clause after clause and see some of the rights and responsibilities of the conservators. It is the responsibility of the conservators to engage in arboriculture, which will include the planting, felling, cutting and lopping of trees and shrubs, the enclosing of newly planted trees or groups of trees, and the selling and disposing of timber. That is very much the kind of responsibility that is invested in the Forestry Commission and it is the sort of thing we should have heard something about. If we provide individuals who do not have public accountability with the right of felling and lopping of trees they can, without any difficulty, cut down the deciduous trees, which have an aesthetic value, and plant conifers. Thus, we can have the kind of situation, which has concerned me for a considerable time, in which the oak, elm and all broad-leaved trees are cut down so that a forest can be a commercially viable proposition, because conifers are faster growing than the broad-leaved trees.
If we give this power to private individuals we may destroy an amenity area rather than create it. We may be landed with conifers in Germanic rows and in uniformity, easy for felling. That is possible under the Bill. Before we start

getting euphoric and rhapsodising over the possibility of retaining an area for amenity value we have to be quite sure that the amenity will be retained. The Bill gives the conservators the right to make the forest a commercial proposition.
I deliberately missed out the first line in my quotation from Clause 17(1)(a), which referred to these activities being
subject to the consent of the Lord of the Manor".
The Bill provides that, irrespective of what Parliament, the conservators or the county council feel, the lord of the manor will have the right to say yea or nay.

Mr. Carol Johnson: It is obvious from his recent remarks that my hon. Friend is quite unaware of the true nature of a common. The reason for the references to the lord of the manor is that he owns the freehold of the whole forest. It is not publicly-owned property. He has sacrified such rights as he has, going back for hundreds of years, so that, through the centuries and under recent legislation, the public right may be enlarged. Fundamentally, this refers simply to his existing rights and does not create fresh rights for him.

Mr. Loughlin: I am not arguing that it creates fresh rights, simply that the consent of the lord of the manor is mentioned in clause after clause. If this is a worthwhile amenity area and it is in his possession, I do not see why we should not take it away from him.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: As I understand it, so far from the rights having been granted to the commoners by the lord of the manor, he tried to cancel them all and sued some of the commoners for exercising their rights. The case went to the High Court and the Court of Appeal, as a result of which the rights were restored to the commoners by the Court of Appeal.

Mr. Loughlin: This I take to be the award mentioned in some of the material sent to us. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Tiverton, who obviously knows more about this than I do. The significance of giving to the lord of the manor the right to say yea or nay—whether he has had that right in the past or not—is that it is written into the Bill.

Mr. Carol Johnson: My hon. Friend's argument would cover practically every one of the commons throughout the length and breadth of the land, where, except in the case of urban commons, the lords of the manor still have the freehold vested in them and still exercise certain rights, just as the commoners have certain rights. But the commons are not yet public property.

Mr. Loughlin: That may well be so. I suppose that the same argument applies when we defend the lord of the manor's right to game, his sporting rights. I suppose that because it is not nationally-owned land we defend that on the same basis.

Mr. Johnson: I am sorry to keep interrupting my hon. Friend. I am not defending anything. I am simply trying to explain the position. The proposal my hon. Friend is now making is obviously one that in any event cannot be dealt with by a Private Bill.

Mr. Loughlin: Well, it should not be in a Private Bill. I am glad that my hon. Friend is helping me. I ask him to turn to Clause 20(3). If it is something that does not matter, if the lord of the manor has always had a right to veto any issue within the curtilage of his house, irrespective of what the hon. Member for Tiverton pointed out a short time ago, I ask my hon. Friend what he makes of the subsection. Although the hon. Member for Hove says that it is all right and that it is a matter of exchange, the subsection says that, provided the Secretary of State consents,
the lord of the manor may enter into and carry into effect agreements with the owners of land outside the forest for the exchange of lands of equal area (including the payment of money for equality of exchange), and on such exchange being completed the land so acquired by the lord of the manor shall be part of the forest and the land so transferred by the lord of the manor shall be released from all rights and obligations affecting the same in so far as such rights and obligations arise from the land having been part of the forest".
Therefore, we are saying in the Bill "It is all right. We have conservators. The people in the county council area are paying rates. The ratepayers can pay, and the lord of the manor can act according to the provisions of the Bill". I am not saying what he would or would not do, but Parliament must ensure that Bills.
particularly Private Bills, are clear and determinate. We do not want any confusion later. That is why there is close examination of Bills.
We are saying that in practice the ratepayers shall pay for the privilege of maintaining an amenity area but, as I read the subsection, the lord of the manor will be given powers to decide what part of the amenity area will reside within the power of the conservators and what part will reside outside.
I know what small communities are. It is true that the Secretary of State has to give consent, but I would not trust a Tory Secretary of State as far as I could throw him when it came to the question of land. To determine my attitude to the consent of the Secretary of State I have only to consider the vast fortunes made in land speculation while the Tories have sat on their bottoms during the past three years.
If we go through the whole of Clause 20, irrespective of the special pleading of my hon. Friend, we see that we are doing two things in the Bill. We are giving our consent to a Bill which will set up a body which is obviously antidemocratic. It is not as if it has defects in its democracy. It is the negation of all that the House has stood for for a long time. Further, we are giving powers to the lord of the manor which no one has a right to have. If we give those powers to him we cannot, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. Carol Johnson) suggests, ensure that the forest will remain as an amenity area.

9.11 p.m.

Mr. Peter Hordern: The hon. Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin) has spent a good deal of time dwelling on the lord of the manor. I thought that the hon. Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. Carol Johnson) dealt very well with his remarks. It seems odd that, because the lord of the manor has certain rights, they should be taken away from him because they happen to appear in a Bill, whether or not it he a Private Bill. That seems extraordinary nostrum.
The hon. Member for Gloucestershire, West was perfectly genuine and right in saying that it was important to ensure that Ashdown Forest is retained for the benefit of the community and that it is


more important than almost anywhere else in the country. I took down his words as he spoke, and that was what he said.
I cannot altogether connect those worthy sentiments with the hon. Memmer's remarks about Clause 23 and the rights of those who wish to have an assembly of more than 100 people. A place like Ashdown Forest cannot be protected if there are to be a number of assemblies of over 100 people. It is not the sort of place which lends itself to such assemblies.
In any case, the hon. Gentleman will find clearly set out in Clause 16 what he wishes in his own words to achieve. namely:
It shall he the duty of the Conservators subject to the provisions of the Act at all times"—
that means day and night—
as far as possible to regulate and manage the forest so as to protect the existing rights of common upon the forest, to protect the forest from encroachments, and to conserve it as a quiet and natural area of outstanding beauty.
If the hon. Gentleman is in favour of conserving the area of Ashdown Forest in that way—and I assume that he is—I must suggest that the area does not lend itself to large assemblies of over 100 people for whatever purpose they may assemble.
My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop), the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Wellbeloved) and the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, West spent a good deal of time discussing the position of the election of conservators.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: By commoners.

Mr. Hordern: It seems that there must be some misunderstanding about the latest position. My advice is that a majority of commoners, both by acreage and by numbers, and including many of those who signed the petition, are in favour of a change in the method of election. Most, at any rate, seem to favour the sort of change which would result in the votes being drawn by value. No such system has been enclosed within the Bill because unanimity has not so far been achieved.
It cannot be claimed, as some hon. Members have claimed, that a majority of

the commoners are against the proposal of the county council to allow the commoners to choose their own system. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Mr. Maddan) rightly said, if the Bill is not given a Second Reading it will mean that the unsatisfactory position to which my hon. Friend and others have referred will persist. I cannot believe that that is a sound solution.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: I am anxious that there should not be any misunderstanding even if we are in disagreement. The opponents of the Bill say that the commoners cannot exercise their choice about a change in the electoral system because they can be blocked by 17 individual commoners. What should have been written into the Bill and cannot now procedurally be written into it is the removal of that block. There is no means of enforcing any undertakings that are given if the Bill is allowed to reach the statute book.

Mr. Hordern: My information is that a majority of that block of 17 is in favour of a change. This question has occurred since the Bill was lodged. My hon. Friend and Opposition Members must be aware that there is no block to the wishes of the majority.
The promoters want to arrange a system by which Ashdown Forest can be kept in its present form while giving increased access to the forest and greater powers to the conservators to preserve the forest and improve its amenity value, not only for those who live locally but for the many visitors who come from far distances. These objectives cannot be achieved unless the Bill is passed, because the East Sussex County Council cannot be expected to provide the funds unless it has a measure of control.
From what I hear, the present situation is unsatisfactory because insufficient funds are raised by the commoners and the local councils, and the county council is looked upon to provide the balance. The difficulty has arisen that one local council at least has put a ceiling on the amount it is prepared to advance. The East Sussex County Council is bound to meet the difference, and in doing so properly expects to have a majority among the conservators and to be able to say what the policy should be.
Those who argue against such a state of affairs are saying that the East Sussex County Council is not competent to run a body of this sort. One could scarcely get a more representative or democratic body than the county council. In every way it is the right body to have this large burden of responsibility and to manage it in this way. I am confident

that Ashdown Forest will remain a place of great natural beauty to the service of all those who live in the area and the many people who visit it for enjoyment. I support the Bill.

Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time:—

The House divided: Ayes 69, Noes 46.

Division No. 186.]
AYES
[9.19 p.m.


Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)
Hawkins, Paul
Ridley, Hn. Nicholas


Baker, W. H. K (Banff)
Hiley, Joseph
Russell, Sir Ronald


Body, Richard
Hornsby-Smith. Rt. Hn. Dame Patricia
Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh & Whitby)


Bowden, Andrew
Iremonger, T. L.
Skeet, T. H. H.


Bray, Ronald
Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)
Speed, Keith


Butler, Adam (Bosworth)
Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)
Spence, John


Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Kilfedder, James
Stanbrook, Ivor


Cockeram, Eric
King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)
Stewart-Smith, Geoffrey (Belper)


Cooke, Robert
Knox, David
Sutcliffe, John


Cormack, Patrick
Langford-Holt, Sir John
Taylor, Edward M. (G'gow, Cathcart)


Drayson, G. B.
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Tebbit, Norman


Emery, Peter
MacArthur, Ian
Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)


Eyre, Reginald
Maddan, Martin
Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)


Farr, John
Mather, Carol
Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin


Fenner, Mrs. Peggy
Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)
Waddington, David


Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)
Moate, Roger
Wall, Patrick


Fletcher-Cooke, Charles
Monks, Mrs. Connie
Ward, Dame Irene


Fookes, Miss Janet
Monro, Hector
White, Roger (Gravesend)


Fortescue, Tim
Ogden, Eric
Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick


Fowler, Norman
Page, Rt. Hn. Graham (Crosby)
Worsley, Marcus


Fraser, Rt. Hn. Hugh (St'fford & Stone)
Page, John (Harrow, W.)



Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)
Palmer, Arthur
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Gummer, J. Selwyn
Pym, Rt. Fin. Francis
Mr. Peter Hordern and


Haselhurst, Alan
Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James
Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine.



Redmond, Robert





NOES


Atkinson, Norman
Golding, John
Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)


Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood
Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Sandelson, Neville


Bishop, E. S
Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)
Siliars, James


Carmichael, Neil
Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas
Silverman, Julius


Clark, David (Colne Valley)
Hughes, Mark (Durham)
Skinner, Dennis


Dalyell, Tam
Hunter, Adam
Spriggs, Leslie


Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Jones, Barry (Flint, E.)
Stoddart, David (Swindon)


Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)
Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Stott, Roger (Westhoughton)


Doig, Peter
Kerr, Russell
Strang, Gavin


Douglas-Mann, Bruce
Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick
Whitehead, Phillip


Driberg, Tom
Lestor, Miss Joan
Williams, W. T. (Warrington)


Duffy, A. E. P.
Loughlin, Charles
Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)


Ellis, Tom
McElhone, Frank



Ewing, Harry
Milne, Edward
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Faulds, Andrew
Mitchell, R. C. (S'hampton, Itchen)
Mr. R. J. Maxwell-Hyslop and


Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)
Mr. James Wellbeloved.


Garrett, W. E.
Robertson, John (Paisley)



Question accordingly agreed to.


Bill read a Second time and committed.

TRANQUILLISING DRUGS (PRICE)

9.26 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Peter Emery): I beg to move,
That the Regulation of Prices (Tranquillising Drugs) (No. 3) Order 1973 (S.I., 1973, No. 1093), dated 21st June 1973, a copy of which was laid before this House on 22nd June, be approved.
As one hon. Member said to me as we came into the House, it seems that we have been here before. These matters are all the subject of current proceedings before the courts. For that reason I am certain that the House will understand it if I restrict my remarks to a summary of the circumstances that have led to the making of this order. The House will recall that the No. 1 Order—

Mr. Anthony Wedgwood-Benn: May I ask you, Mr. Speaker to clarify the situation? The Minister referred to the current court hearing. Clearly there are problems of jurisdiction here. I hope you will accept that since the House is asked to approve an order we must be free to bring our minds to bear on the matter and should not be restricted in any argument by the fact that it is being tried in another court, recalling that in this sense this House is the High Court of Parliament.

Mr. Speaker: I, or perhaps those who advise me, thought that this point might arise. I am, therefore, equipped to deal with it. I rest upon the ruling of my predecessor of 25th October 1966 when he ruled that:
The rule that matters awaiting adjudication by a court of law should not be brought before the House by a motion did not apply to Bills or delegated legislation.
There is no sub-judice limitation about this debate.

Mr. Emery: I am certain, Mr. Speaker, that both sides of the House will thank you for that ruling. It is in accordance with the legal advice given to the Government and the Opposition.
The House will recall that the No. 1 Order, which reduced the prices of certain drugs sold by the Roche Group following a report by the Monopolies Corn-mission, was made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and laid before the House on 12th April, coming

into operation on 23rd April. The order was debated in the House on 3rd May and received an affirmative resolution.
In the meantime, as a result of proceedings in another place, the order was not approved by both Houses within 28 days and the No. 2 Order and, subsequently, the No. 3 Order, had to be made to continue the price reductions without pause.
The No. 3 Order follows the form of the No. 1 Order with only minor differences, which it might be helpful for me to outline. It was obviously not necessary to repeat the provision in Article 5 of the No. 1 Order requiring agreements to maintain the resale prices of these drugs to be abandoned within seven days of the commencement of the order. The only other changes take account of the different dates of commencement. The events preceding the No. 1 Order were fully discussed when the House approved that order on 3rd May. I explained then that the commission had reached its unanimous conclusions after a full and thorough inquiry; that it was satisfied that Roche's prices were manifestly too high and that the company had made excessive profits for itself in this country; and that the Government took the view that the state of affairs disclosed in the report justified urgent action to reduce the prices of Librium, Valium and related products.
The House will not wish me to go over the detailed ground again. Nothing that has happened since then has led the Government to change their views about the correctness of the action that they have taken. The House may find it helpful if I briefly touch on developments since May.
The order that was debated on 3rd May affected only companies in the Roche group and was found by the Special Orders Committee of another place to be hybrid, that is to say, broadly speaking, one that is not of general effect but concerning a particular individual or company. It is open to those affected by hybrid orders requiring an affirmative resolution to petition in another place against the order. Roche, as it was perfectly entitled to do, presented such a petition, which was considered by the Special Orders Committee of another place at hearings lasting five days, held


between 14th May and 8th June. The members of the committee were divided in their views.
Three members, including the chairman, felt that there was no case for setting up a Select Committee to inquire further into the matter. Four members felt that there should be a limited inquiry by a Select Committee with narrow terms of reference restricting its consideration to the single issue of whether the order prices made sufficient allowance for the allocation of research and development costs. The report of the committee was debated in another place on 22nd June, and their Lordships finally decided by a substantial majority after a full debate not to set up a Select Committee.
The Managing Director of Roche Products Ltd. wrote a letter to The Times, which was published on 27th June, suggesting that there was something unfair or improper about their Lordships' decision. I wish immediately to repudiate the implications of this letter.
I say only that the views of Members of another place cut across party lines. My noble Friend the Leader of the House in the other place explained the background and the procedures, and I think that the Government acted with scrupulous fairness. The Lord Chairman of Committees, who had voted against the setting up of the Select Committee in the Special Orders Committee, himself moved the motion on the basis that it was normal practice for the House to adopt the reports of its Committees. It was made perfectly clear that the Government left the decision whether or not to set up a Select Committee to a free vote in their Lordships' House and my noble Friend the Leader of the House, my noble Friends Lord Aberdare and Lord Limerick, being the representatives of the two Departments concerned, the DTI and the DHSS, and the Government Whips abstained from voting on the motion.
On this basis I can only regret that the Managing Director of Roche Products Ltd. has seen fit to suggest that the recommendation of the Special Orders Committee was frustrated by a party political manoeuvre, or that it was in some way improper for my noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor, for

example, to vote in the way he did. The suggestion that any member of the House, including the Lord Chancellor, was not free to vote according to his conscience is quite monstrous.
Both Houses are now able to consider the No. 3 Order.

Mr. Peter Rees: Can my hon. Friend cite any instance on a previous occasion when the House of Lords has similarly emasculated the recommendation of its Special Orders Committee?

Mr. Emery: There have been only two occasions when the other place has considered an application to the Special Orders Committee. In the first of them it was quite plain that the applicant was in no position to put his case and in that case the Committee's recommendation was adopted. In the second case no decision was made, because a General Election intervened. However, I think it would be quite wrong of anyone to believe that there is any precedent in the fact that this matter was dealt with in the way that it was. Certainly it would be a precedent for anyone to suggest that the other place always approved the decisions of all its Committees. That is not the case.
I should inform the House of three other developments that have taken place and which may be of interest to hon. Members.
The Roche Group has begun proceedings in the High Court against the Department of Trade and Industry in connection with this order and the two earlier orders. Among other things the group seeks a declaration that the proceedings of the Monopolies Commission were contrary to natural justice and that the orders are therefore void. It is also claiming damages for losses suffered in consequence of the making of the orders by the Secretary of State. These proceedings will have to take their course.
The second development is that the company gave notice to the Government in a letter of 25th June from its solicitors that it proposed to raise its prices in breach of the order unless the Government agreed to certain conditions in connection with the possible repayment of moneys to Roche representing the difference between the pre-order prices and the prices fixed by the order.
My right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Trade and Consumer Affairs placed a copy of this letter in the Library of the House on 27th June, as he said he would do in answering a Question by the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn). As a result of this letter, the Government have moved for an injunction to secure compliance with the order. Proceedings began yesterday and were adjourned until next week.
Roche is abiding by the order and has undertaken to do so pending next week's hearing. I have been fairly comprehensive in what I have said on this matter, and in the circumstances the House will understand that I wish to say no more about it tonight.
The third matter is the question of the provision of information. Hon. Members will recall that there has been much discussion about certain figures that were not made available to the Monopolies Commission.
The Commission referred to this question in paragraph 156 of its report. It had asked for the value of world-wide sales of ethical products; the value of world-wide research costs for ethical products; the world-wide sales of chlordiazepoxide and diazepam respectively by value; and the world-wide sales of chlordiazepoxide and diazepam respectively by weight in kilograms.
Roche, superimposing its judgment on that of the Monopolies Commission, thought that the information would be of no use. The commission thought it was necessary for its inquiry and quite naturally wished to reach its own decision on its usefulness and its own conclusions about how far it was necessary for a proper understanding of its report to publish the information.
The Commission is, of course, used to handling commercially sensitive information—it has to do so probably in every inquiry—and does not publish it without the best of reasons.
But that is all in the past. I am now able to inform the House that, in a letter dated 29th June, Roche's solicitors presented to my Department the figures referred to in paragraph 156 of the report, from which I have quoted. Roche would prefer them not to be published. We have, however, passed the information on to the Department of Health and

Social Security, to which Roche signified that it had no objection. I am glad that the firm has now provided the information, which is being studied.
It is a pity that such information was not made available in the past, either to the Department of Health and Social Security in successive discussions over a number of years under the voluntary price regulation scheme, or in response to the request from the Monopolies Corn-mission in case it would have assisted it in its inquiries.

Mr. T. H. H. Skeet: If the information has been disclosed, and is rather material, about the research money spent around the world, apart from total sales, surely this matter was never considered by the Monopolies Commission and therefore the commission's findings may have been based on an error.

Mr. Emery: I never wish to belittle any argument put by my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeet) and, of course, that could be one conclusion. However, it may well be that exactly the opposite is the case. That is why I believe it right that I should have said that the matter has now been passed to the Department and we have now reached the position in which both Houses can approve the No. 3 Order.
I should add that if Roche was to come forward with any new evidence of another important change in the relevant circumstances since the commission reported, which might justify some modification of the order prices, my right hon. and learned Friend would naturally be glad to consider it. Clearly, the prices that the order sets out may not be appropriate for all time and it is right and proper that the Government should say that we very much hope that the House will show its support for this order, as it did for the No. 1 Order, by approving it tonight.

Mr. Nicholas Ridley: My hon. Friend says he has received these figures, which have been required for some time. If they are so relevant, why does not my hon. Friend reveal them to the House so that we can form our judgment on whether we should pass this order? He has the benefit of knowing whether those figures are relevant and helpful, or have any


bearing on the matter. We do not, but it is we who are being asked to pass the order tonight.

Mr. Emery: Yes. I fully understand the point that is being made by my hon. Friend. There are two things. First, the company that has supplied the information which has been so consistently refused has asked that the matter be not made public. In the proceedings as they are at this moment it would seem to me, when accusations are being made against the Government, that it is right and proper at this moment that we should take the action we have. The figures have been passed to the Department of Health and Social Security so that an assessment can be made of them. At this stage of the proceedings I do not believe that it would be right or proper to publish them—

Mr. Ridley: May I press my hon. Friend?

Mr. Emery: May I first of all finish the sentence I am in the middle of? That does not preclude the fact that in the fullness of time it may be thought necessary to publish them, but with all the information which is considered to be of a highly commercial nature and which the company which has supplied it has specifically asked should not be made public. I believe that at this stage of the proceedings the Government would be in no way considering the position of Roche by allowing me to comply immediately with the request of my hon. Friend.

Mr. Ridley: I am afraid that I must take issue with my hon. Friend on a point of fact. As I understand it, Roche has said that it would be quite happy for the information to be made public but would like the Government to inform the company before doing so. So my hon. Friend is not right in saying that Roche has asked for the information to be kept secret. I would, therefore, suggest to him that it would be much better if he brought the order forward on a day after he has had time to tell Roche that he intends to publish the figures, and so that we may be asked to pass this order with full information at our disposal.

Mr. Emery: My information is clear and definite, and I would not wish to mislead the House in any way. The company has made it quite clear to the Government that it would prefer us not to publish the figures. There is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that that is the case. If Roche wishes to publish the figures, it is entirely up to the company. It is not anything I have to do. Why should I be held to be in any doubt when this information is easily available to this company to make public if it wishes to defend itself? I do not believe it is right for the hon. Gentleman to suggest what he is suggesting when the Government are complying with a request of that company, when that company is able to make public its own figures. If I may suggest it, the hon. Gentleman is on a false point.

Mr. Peter Rees: My information is—and no doubt my hon. Friend will correct me if I am wrong—that the figures that the Ministry was anxious to obtain and for which the Monopolies Commission asked were sent to the Secretary of State on 29th June, to use as he sees fit but with the invitation not to publish them without good reason—which seems to be reasonable—and with the suggestion that if they were published the reasons for doing so should be stated at the time. Perhaps my hon. Friend would confirm, not necessarily at this point of the debate but, perhaps, later, if he can catch your eye a second time, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that that is the case, because that puts a slightly different construction on this point, which is of particular importance when the House has to make up its mind on this order.

Mr. Benn: Before the hon. Gentleman replies, and while he is considering the advice that has reached him from the Box, may I ask him in his reply to clarify the position? As I understand it, information was sought by the Monopolies Commission from the company, which declined to publish it. The information was not made available to another place when the Special Orders Committee considered the matter under the special hybrid procedure. It was not made available to another place when it considered the report of the Special Orders Committee. It was not made available by the company to


another place, therefore, when that other place was trying to decide whether it should take the advice of the Special Orders Committee and set up a Select Committee. It is now available to the Minister with a special request that it shall not be published without giving to the company notice that it is to be published.

Mr. Emery: Without good reason.

Mr. Benn: But at any time. If the fact that the Monopolies Commission asked for this information does not constitute good reason, I would like to know what is a good reason. I should, however, like the Minister to confirm that this information has been denied to both the Monopolies Commission and a Select Committee of another place and is denied to this House tonight, at the request not of the Minister but of necessity of the firm concerned. Can he confirm that?

Mr. Emery: I should like to clear this up, because I believe that a red herring is being drawn across the whole subject and I would not want to mislead the House or have anybody suggest that the Government were not acting absolutely properly in the matter of these figures. I should like to make it absolutely clear—I have the letter before me—that Roche wrote to the Department saying:
Nevertheless these are, as you are aware, figures which our clients as a matter of policy have never disclosed for general publication. Our clients' view is that no useful purpose would be served by making the figures public knowledge.
If that is not a fairly strong view of the company urging us not to publish, I do not know what is.

Mr. Peter Rees: Will my hon. Friend read the whole letter? Otherwise we are in complete darkness.

Mr. Emery: I am not giving way at this moment but, if I may answer the hon. Gentleman who was on his feet at the same time as I was, I will say what is absolutely clear: that if the company wishes to publish the figures, it may do so. It is up to the company. I would say to those who want to come to this House and defend the company, or who argue that there is something wrong because the company is supposedly not having a fair deal, that it rests with the

company itself to publish the figures. There can be no doubt about that. It is within the control of the company.
Secondly, there is as far as we know—we have had time to make only a partial study of the figures since we received them—nothing at all startling about them which makes the Government think that the Monopolies Commission's figures were wildly wrong. It is important that that should be clearly understood. I hope that the House will show its support for this order as it did for the previous orders.
The Government do not believe that the current court proceedings need in any way prevent Parliament from approving the order tonight. Roche has exercised its right to challenge the order in the courts. That is its right. In the meantime, however, it is, I believe, right for the status quo to be maintained and for the order price to continue in force. Therefore, in commending the order I should conclude by repeating what I said earlier.
I assure the House that the Government will continue to believe that they have acted correctly in this matter. Therefore, the order should have the support not only of the House but of the country as a whole.

Mr. Skeet: Is my hon. Friend saying he is convinced that the Government are right and that he has been able to complete his inquiries?

Mr. Emery: I shall not add to what I have said: that in the immediate inquiries we have made in the period for which we have had figures, we see no reason whatever to believe that the Government's action is other than correct.

Mr. Peter Rees: Before my hon. Friend concludes, will he read the letter from which he quoted selectively?

9.56 p.m.

Mr. Nicholas Ridley: I must first declare a rather oblique interest because when this reference was made to the Monopolies Commission I was in the shoes now occupied by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State. I think that it would not be breaking the terms of the Official Secrets Act to say that the recommendation was mainly made by the Department


of Health and Social Security. Therefore, in no sense do I wish to criticise the making of a reference, but I wish merely to say a few words about the report and the position we have now reached on Roche.
I am of course against monopoly. Nothing would please me more if there were no monopoly and free competition throughout our economy. Nevertheless, I slightly dislike the sort of hectoring tone adopted by the Government on this matter, and some of the things said by my hon. Friend the Minister tonight seemed to smack of an attitude that they were determined to clobber this company without being quite certain whether they were right to do so.
I must first refer to the competitive situation in respect of tranquillisers. Although Roche has 60 per cent. of the world market, there are three or four tranquillisers which compete. One is Serenid, which is more expensive, another is Meprobamate, which is slightly more expensive, and there is Integrin, which is four times as expensive as Valium and Librium on the British market. Therefore, one must conclude that these tranquillisers are competitive in price with their competitors. Understandably there has been a heavy stocking up of the tranquillisers by members of the public while these orders are in force. It seems to me to demonstrate that at present prices the public are getting good value for money and do not expect supplies to continue to be so cheap for long.
The tranquillisers are protected by a United Kingdom patent. What is the point of a patent if it does not offer protection to those who have spent large sums of money in developing a product of this sort? It seems curious that we have stuck rigidly to our patent laws and enforced them, and are now taking action of a vicious sort in direct contradiction to the rights granted by Her Majesty in Letters Patent. These are marvellous drugs which have brought great benefit and comfort to millions of people.
I wish to ask three questions. Are we wise, in the interests of the British consumer, to pass this order? We are bullying this company and—no doubt this is a surprise to the Department of Trade

and Industry—the company is showing itself remarkably unhappy about the bullying and is refusing to knuckle under. Could it be that we may be forced to obtain drugs from competitors if we proceed with this order and Roche will not make its tranquillisers available? If that were to happen not only would we have to pay more but we would probably have less effective tranquillisers for doctors to prescribe. They might be up to three times more expensive.
I wonder, indeed, whether people realise how cheap Roche sells its tranquillisers in this country compared with the price in other countries. The price of a standard dose of Librium is 1·5 in the United Kingdom, ranging up to 4·1 for the same dose in Australia. That is the retail price in pounds per 100 tablets of capsules. When one looks at all the drugs, not only those made by Roche, one finds the same pattern. We obtain drugs at extremely cheap prices compared with those paid in many other countries for important patented drugs of this sort.
I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Barkston Ash (Mr. Alison), together with his Department, has been waging successful campaigns to bring down the cost of drugs to the National Health Service, but how wise is it to pursue that too far, and are we in danger of being the only member of the international club who is not paying a fair share of international research into drugs?
The second question which the House must ask itself is whether we have the right to bully this foreign company—this horrid multinational, as Labour Members will no doubt describe it. We do not have full information about this matter. We know that we are vulnerable, because drugs made by British pharmaceutical companies in this country and sold cheap here are much more expensive abroad.
What happens if Sweden, Australia or Switzerland starts to pass orders such as this one against the products of British firms which are charging three times as much abroad as they are charging in the home market? Would that he conducive to employment or profit in British drug companies, or to the further development and research which leads to more drugs to help mankind?
The National Economic Development Office report on pharmaceutical companies states:
However, persistence of the apparent current lack of alignment of prescription medicine prices in the United Kingdom with those in comparable overseas markets, in so far as this affects profitability and the assessment by pharmaceutical companies of their future prospects, could cause a reduction in the share of the world pharmaceutical industry's new investment located in the United Kingdom.
Those are further risks that we run.
The third question, and much the most important one, is whether we are right in our judgment of the prices that should be charged. Assuming that we are right in answering my first two questions, are we right in the prices which the order lays down for the sale of these drugs? I put forward the view that, if the figures that have been produced are relevant it is imperative that the Government should bring them before the House and let us have them.
I shall not support the order in the absence of any figures which may shed new light on the problem. I think my hon. Friend was wrong to suggest that Roche had asked for them to be kept confidential. On receipt of the letter containing the figures on Friday, my hon. Friend could have telephoned Roche and said that he had to move an order in the House of Commons on Wednesday and he must inform hon. Members, if these figures threw new light on the problem, what they were. I say that because it would clarify the issue very much if we had a little more information about the economic judgment which underlies the prices in the order.
I find the Monopolies Commission report exceptionally abstruse and unconvincing on the question of what are the right prices for these drugs. The two assumptions which it seems to make are in conflict with the National Economic Development Office report on the pharmaceutical industry. The two assumptions seem to be that all that matters is the profit that is being made on these two drugs and not the profit being made by the group as a whole, and secondly, what the company is making out of its United Kingdom sales as opposed to its world-wide operations. The Monopolies Commission apparently came to a conclusion, through much

unconvincing arithmetic, that the company was making a whacking profit from the sale of Librium and Valium in this country alone—nothing else seemed to interest the commission—and it went on to recommend these very strong reductions.
This has really nothing to do with me because I am not representing the country in which La Roche has its headquarters and pays it taxes and where monopoly laws affect it. But if we use this technique against foreign companies of this sort, I quail to think what would happen if they were to start using it against us. If we are to do it, we have to satisfy ourselves that the decision to which we come as to how much is being spent on research by this company is at least based on the true facts and is reasonable in the light of the continual escalation in the costs of research which we know is taking place in this industry.
I remind the House that, although the running costs of research are shown before the profit is drawn, a very large proportion of the profit is reinvested into capital facilities for doing further research. From the figures in the company's accounts, one finds that almost the smallest item in the appropriation account is dividends. The company is not paying the money out to people; it is ploughing it back into further research, and research which, it is freely admitted, would not be done if there were to be a cutback in the profits it could make.

Mr. Skeet: Will my hon. Friend also pick up the argument that the return on capital invested is similar to that of Beecham in the United Kingdom and, therefore, is not excessive?

Mr. Ridley: My hon. Friend will no doubt develop that point. I do not want to take up too much time. But one could go on to a whole series of questions which, if we are to be fair-minded and responsible about the order. we should be asking.
If I had been a member of the Special Orders Committee of another place—after this speech I suppose that my chances have increased rather than reduced—I would have voted with the four and not with the three. We do not have enough information to enable us


to decide whether we are acting here in a hysterical way and slashing the prices of the company's drugs resulting possibly in a cutback in research which we do not quite comprehend. No figures have been put before me that convince me about the level of prices. Perhaps it should be lower. I am not saying that it should be higher or lower, but the information does not seem to be sufficiently convincing for making such a bold stab in the dark on what would be a proper price.
Irrespective of the legal proceedings, which do not debar us from talking about this matter, I ask my hon. Friend to produce some better facts and figures before he proceeds with any order on a permanent basis. Whether he gets his

order tonight does not seem to be very important. What is very important is that another place, which has the power to do so, should examine this order with a great deal more care than we can examine it, because we have no procedure for setting up Select Committees or for suggesting that the order is hybrid. It is the very hybridity of the order which makes that procedure in another place so very valuable. Indeed, if I would not be out of order, I should like to suggest that we should adopt hybridity powers in relation to statutory instruments in this House, too; but that is not for tonight.
I content myself with saying that my hon. Friend must make a better case before he makes these prices a permanent feature of our legislation.

10.10 p.m.

Mr. T. H. H. Skeet: I am, naturally, concerned about the future of research and the coming on to the world market of new drugs, from whatever firms they may derive. Of course I accept the view of the Under-Secretary that it is the job of himself and his Department to assess the validity and use of the information which has been disposed by the company.
Yesterday this matter came before the High Court and an assurance was given by the company that it would not raise prices. It will come before the court again on 10th July. I should have thought that the order could be withdrawn and brought up again if there is an unsatisfactory renewal of the arrangements then.
In its report the Royal Commission said:
The group's current research expenditure has been inflated by the use of excess profit to a point at which it ceases to be reasonable to regard the expenditure as fully recoverable from current sales.
Earlier it said:
We did not accept that in the virtual absence of price competition there is no limit to the price and profit levels that a manufacturer is justified in setting himself so long as he uses the proceeds to expand his research.
On what evidence could the commission come to that conclusion? An enormous amount of money spent on research may prove abortive. An enormous amount may be spent in various parts of the world and the price is divisible among consumers.
One comes to consider the nature of the company involved. As I said in my intervention, the return on assets of this company is roughly equivalent to that of the Beecham Group in the United Kingdom. It spends more on research than most pharmaceutical companies and less on uneconomic production. The profitability of its items would compare with those of many United Kingdom companies. All that we are considering in this case is whether the commission was right, when assessing prices, to conclude that research could not be allowed beyond a specific limit. But it has not accepted evidence on this issue. In fact, it has gone quite the other way. That is what concerns me.
In the public interest letter sent by the Department to the company which was discussed extensively in the Committee on the Fair Trading Bill certain matters were brought up. In the case which has been presented, which many hon. Members will have received, one reads:
An examination of the public interest letter shows that it contains no hint of any suggestion that the level of Roche group's research expenditure might be regarded as inflated or too high to be a proper charge against profits, or that the level of such expenditure was abnormally high for a large pharmaceutical manufacturer.
Therefore, at the time when it received the public interest letter the company had no inkling of what was in the commission's mind that it would have specifically to answer. There was no call for the company to have to justify its research expenditure.
Then, of course, on 26th October 1972, at the oral hearing, the company was suddenly presented with a statement that the commission would like some evidence on this general subject. About 30 minutes was spent on a major subject which is the basis of the commission's report and from which it could not have derived any evidence from the people who were challenged. These people had no opportunity of presenting their case.
The argument, of course, is that research and development expenditure, when it is to be incorporated in a price, cannot be taken in isolation. One must consider one's worldwide expenditure and the products of a company and then assess what is the proper figure.
The other matter on which the commission would have to come to a conclusion is where there is to be a cut-off allowance for the amount of money spent on research, and where it should come in this case. The House is entitled to that information, but we have no evidence adduced on it.
The Minister has said that of course there has not been a full disclosure by the company. On page 43 of the report the company says:
The Commission in criticising the Roche group for failing to provide information requested by the Commission failed to disclose that the information was material only for


the purpose of verifying figures provided or offered to the Commission, and that such information was in fact offered to the Commission in confidence and refused by it.
I am not interested in the industry. I am not interested in a foreign company. But I am interested, as a Member of this House, to see that it is properly dealt with by a Monopolies Commission from which there can be no appeal. The company feels that it has not been able to establish the right to assess in its boardroom the quantity of money which it should set aside for research into new drugs. Many of us here will appreciate that new drugs are essential for the treatment of cancer and many terrifying diseases.
If the price is to be cut by the Government, the effect will ripple right across the world. It will have the consequence that the amount of money allocated for research will also be cut. Therefore, we are deprived of a singular advantage.
As the matter is being litigated, as it is seized by the High Court, I see no necessity for passing the order. When I put to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary that I wanted him to assess the materiality of the evidence he has received, he said that there is nothing wildly wrong to interfere with the judgment that the Government have made. But the national Press this morning was of the view that the Department had not finished its studies and, therefore, had not reached a conclusion. Of course, I must accept my hon. Friend's conclusion, but if the Department has reached its conclusions I should have thought he could say, on the basis of what he had read, why he can vindicate the policy he put forward on a previous occasion and why he suggests that the information which has now been disclosed has no materiality.
This is a case which goes well beyond La Roche. I can see it arising with many pharmaceutical companies, not merely our own but others, and in other fields, that the State will have the right to say that there is a point beyond which expenditure on research is needless, not because the industry and those concerned know all about it but simply because the Monopolies Commission, consisting of people picked from all walks of life, is

prepared to lay it down and the Government in turn are prepared to say that they will sanction the report, from which there can be no appeal.
I have said enough on those points. I cannot support the order, because I do not have the information on which to come to the correct verdict. The Government should hesitate, draw back until next Tuesday, when we shall see the state of events again. They will then have the opportunity to present the whole case with full knowledge, to give my hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) the full information contained in the letter, if he has not got one already, and give the House the benefit of the additional information which he has and has studied, because he disclosed that information to the House.

10.20 p.m.

Mr. Frank McElhone: It was not my intention to intervene, but, having listened to the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) and the hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeet), I felt obliged to do so.
I take up the last remark of the hon. Member for Bedford—namely, that he will not support the order because he does not have all the information. I get the impression that the hon. Gentleman is well briefed. He was able to make comparison with Beecham's and other companies. It seems to me that he and his hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury have been very well briefed. I was reminded whilst listening to them of the defence of the private railway companies of the past.
It ill becomes any hon. Member not to support the Monopolies Commission and to give support to an abuse of commercial power by a multinational company.

Mr. Ridley: The hon. Gentleman says that my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeet) and I appear to be well briefed. He seems to suggest that he is not. Might it not be better if he became well briefed before supporting without question the order?

Mr. McElhone: That seems a fair point, but it works the other way. The


hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury is a former Minister in the Department of Trade and Industry. He is a predecessor of the Under-Secretary of State. He of all people should know his case better than most. For an ex-Minister of the present Government to say that he is not prepared to support the order castigates the Monopolies Commission. I hardly think that that is responsible conduct for an ex-Minister. That is especially so when he says that his decision will probably cost him a seat in another place.
The hon. Gentleman took great pains to mention other European countries. He mentioned the prices charged in Sweden and other places. My limited information indicates that the company is not too happy with the Italian side of its operations. I understand that the company does not get anything like the prices for similar products in Italy that it receives in this country.
I am very much aware of the great use of Valium and Librium. I found it strange that the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury should say that the public is stocking up because of the price cuts which have been imposed. Surely the public is not allowed to stock up with drugs of this nature. Surely the public can obtain the drugs only by prescription from general practitioners. I hope the hon. Gentleman will take the opportunity to correct that statement. It could be lethal if it went from this House that people can stock up with these drugs. The hon. Gentleman's remark casts a slur on the medical profession. I do not think he means what he says. If his remark is read tomorrow it will reflect badly on the medical profession, which is responsible for the dispensing of drugs.
I should have thought that the order would have had the support of every hon. Member, and certainly hon. Members who have been ex-Ministers in the Department of Trade and Industry. The time is long past when we can accept that international companies should be able to say to the Government that they are not prepared in any way to cooperate, in spite of the fact that the record of the Department of Health and Social Security when making agreements with British and international companies

has always been reasonable. I consider that we have always been fair dealers when making such agreements.

10.25 p.m.

Mr. Peter Rees: I hope that the hon. Member for Glasgow, Gorbals (Mr. McElhone) will forgive me if I do not follow all his main points, although, by implication, I will take up some of his minor ones.
I am not concerned to make the case for La Roche, nor do I quarrel with the proposition that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State should do his best—as I know he is doing—to limit the cost of drugs and medicines to the National Health Service and to private patients. There is another consideration which weighs strongly with me and which I hope will weigh with other hon. Members on both sides of the House.
The order is based on the report and recommendation of the Monopolies Commission. If the report and recommendation are open to serims criticism it follows that the order is open to serious criticism. I do not intend to criticise the panel of the Monopolies Commission which considered this problem, though possibly only one of its members was really qualified to judge the financial implications of the case.
It would be trite and absurd for me to equate the Monopolies Commission with the Star Chamber, but it is true that its processes are inquisitorial and the consequences of its recommendations can be penal. More importantly, a party does not know in any detail the case that it has to meet. It does not know the evidence given by other parties which vitally affect its case and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeet) pointed out, there is no right of appeal. I contrast that position with that of the Restrictive Practices Court, which was introduced by a Conservative administration, and from which there is a right of appeal.
The reference to the Monopolies Commission was a degree disingenuous because it did not mention by name the La Roche company, but as the La Roche company had the patent for the two products which were the reference products it was obviously directed, and directed only, at the La Roche company.
I ask myself—and I cannot glean this from the Monopolies Commission's Report—did that company have a substantial chance to rebut the case that was clearly being compiled and made against it? My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State has criticised the company for not having produced crucial information I am not here making the company's case, but I understand—and this can be inferred to a certain extent from the Monopolies Commission's Report—that the only figures which were denied by the company to the Monopolies Commission at the end of the day were figures that were needed to substantiate figures that had been made available to the commission, and the figures that had to be substantiated were figures that had been agreed for tax purposes by both the United Kingdom and the Swiss revenue authorities.
Certain misinformed points have been made about the tax implications of the case. Under the Double Taxation Convention between this country and Switzerland, if a group rigs the prices at which products are transferred from, say, a Swiss parent to a British subsidiary, the revenue authorities of both countries can intervene and adjust the tax liabilities of both companies by reference to open market considerations. I understand—and perhaps my hon. Friend will correct or confirm this if he catches your eye again, Mr. Deputy Speaker—that the only figures that were not profferred to the Monopolies Commission at the end of the day were those needed to support figures that had independent support from the revenue authorities of the two countries concerned.
Beyond that—and this again may be inferred from the Monopolies Commission's Report—the figures were offered to the commission but on the basis that they were not for publication. Whether that was a proper basis on which to offer figures I do not say. It simply is not true—it could be that I am misinformed because I am not making the company's case—and it certainly is not fair for my hon. Friend to say publicly in this House that the company was as unco-operative as he led us to suppose in his opening remarks.
My criticism of the Monopolies Commission's Report is perhaps irrelevant. What will perhaps weigh with the House is that another place thought fit to refer the recommendation to its Special Orders Committee. I hope that the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) will allow me to correct him. I know that his experience in parliamentary matters is very great, and I know that his father graced the upper House and hereditarily, therefore, he may have considerably more knowledge of the upper House than I.
However, the Special Orders Committee is a quasi-judicial body almost analogous, although not similar in history, to the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords. But it is concerned only to see whether a prima facie case can be established to upset some kind of order that has been referred to it. The terms of its operations can be extracted from the Standing Orders of the House of Lords. In particular, the Committee is enjoined to discover whether the petition discloses substantial grounds of complaint. But it is not required, and nor did it do so in this case, I understand, to go deeply into the merits of the company's case.
It certainly did not hear all the evidence that had been given or could have been given to the Monopolies Commission because the whole tenor of the company's petition was that if it was found that the company's case disclosed substantial grounds of complaint the matter should be referred to a Select Committee for a further and more detailed examination of the merits of that case. This was what the Special Orders Committee found. It is as irrelevant to observe that it found by a majority as it is to observe in legal cases sometimes that the Judicial Committee decides matters on a majority vote.
What the Committee found was that the matter should be referred to a Select Committee. The clear inference from its decision was that it was dissatisfied with the way in which the Monopolies Commission had investigated the case. I do not want to put it too highly but it felt at the end of the day that possibly the commission 'had not given the company


a proper chance to deploy the necessary evidence on one or two crucial points.
My hon. Friend must forgive me if I say that it will not do for him to say that it recommended a limited and narrow referral to the Select Committee because the matters on which it recommended a referral went to the heart of the Monopolies Commission's decision. I quote from the report of the Special Orders Committee:
Further inquiries should be limited to the issue of whether the prices recommended by the Monopolies Commission"—
the prices which we are being asked to debate—
make adequate provision for a proper allocation of group research and development expenditure in their sales of the reference drugs by the petitioners in the United Kingdom and if not what, if any, adjustments upwards should be made of prices recommended by the Commission in order to make adequate provision for this expenditure.
That is the kernel of the matter we are asked to decide tonight. It will not do for my hon. Friend, for whom I have the greatest respect, to brush it aside and say that there was to be only a limited reference—"narrow terms of reference" he said. He went on to say that after a full debate the recommendation was emasculated—that is my word but that was the effect of his remarks—in another place. It is not for me to comment upon the conduct of affairs in another place. I hope I may be permitted to observe that in the course of that debate there was less evidence given than the Special Orders Committee had and all that another place had was the report of the Monopolies Commission.
I see no practical reason why we in this House should not have the matter referred to a Select Committee. It was against every precedent that the recommendation of the Special Orders Committee in another place was emasculated in this way, and it would be the honourable course for the Government to withdraw this order so that the matter may be referred to a Select Committee. This is the third order that has been based on the Monopolies Commission's Report.
There is, of course, another facet to this problem to which my hon. Friend the Minister has referred. Litigation is impending, and I understand that the company is contending that the conclusion

of the Monopolies Commission contravened the rules of natural justice. It would be improper for me—and I am in no position to do so—to say whether that case is well founded. Knowing what we do of the Monopolies Commission's procedures, it is possible through inadvertence—and I do not allege malice or bias—that points were not put to the company, and that the company was not given a chance to rebut the substantial case made against it. We shall no doubt hear next week if and when any order is made in the Chancery Division.
If an order were made on the company's case by the High Court it would follow that the High Court was saying that the Monopolies Commission's conclusions and recommendations could not be relied upon. If that were so my hon. Friend and the Government would find themselves in the embarrassing position of having asked us to pass an order which the High Court subsequently found was based on a misappreciation of the true position by the Monopolies Commission. There is no justification for the order if the Monopolies Commission came to the wrong conclusion. It may be that in the end Roche has charged an artifically high price. I am in no position to judge that. I cannot check it. But I observe that the revenue authorities were satisfied, and the issue on which they had to be satisfied was very much that.
I am concerned that the company has not had a proper chance to state its case, and I find that particularly distressing because it is all too easy to project this case as another feature of the ugly and unacceptable face of capitalism, particularly Swiss capitalism. It is all too easy to have another tilt at multinational companies—an expression which has practically become a term of abuse, though why I fail to understand. It is all too easy to whip up sentiment on the basis that the National Health Service has been overcharged for drugs by rapacious monopolists. But I feel that in matters where the Government are armed with far-reaching powers they should be seen to act with scrupulous fairness.
It would be so easy for my hon. Friend to withdraw the order tonight and refer the question to a Select Committee on what he described as the narrow basis recommended by the Special Orders Committee of the other place. If he does


not, I shall be unable to support this order tonight—

Mr. Benn: Shame!

Mr. Rees: —because I have an uneasy feeling that justice may not have been done in this case to this company.

10.40 p.m.

Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke: Unlike many of my colleagues, I support the Monopolies Commission's Report in this matter, as I have said before. It is perfectly proper and inevitable that the Monopolies Commission should inquire into the accounts of foreign or multinational companies in the national interest, just as it can those of national companies if it can do so and if it would be impossible for it to fulfil its task if it did not. On the other hand, in view of what we have heard, this seems a very odd moment at which to bring forward this order. I support the order, but its timing strikes me as inopportune.
I say that for two reasons. The company has alleged that the considerations of natural justice have not been observed by the Monopolies Commission. It is very easy to allege a breach of the considerations of natural justice, and it may be that Her Majesty's Government feel that if they allow that sort of consideration to apply in this case it will be open to everyone who feels himself injured or damaged by a report of the commission immediately to make such an allegation, to issue a writ in the Chancery Division, and to follow the inevitable course of justice by these procedures.
If that was all it was, the Government should not sit down under it. But there is a bit more substance in it than just that. This distinguished quasi-judicial body in another place has given some sort of prima facie support to it. It is nothing to do with me, but I do not think that there is anything in it. But if the Special Orders Committee says that there is a case to answer on these questions which my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dover (Mr. Peter Rees) has so eloquently described, and if the company has gone to the extent of taking out its writ in the Chancery Division, which is returnable very quickly, it seems to me that today rather than this time next week is very hasty.
I am fortified in that view by the fact that there has been, rather late in the day, a sort of death bed repentance on the part of the company to offer these figures. My hon. and learned Friend said that the company had offered these figures all the time to the Monopolies Commission in conditions of confidentiality. if that is so, it puts a very different aspect on the matter.
We in this House have felt from first to last in this matter that one of the reasons for supporting the Monopolies Commission's Report, as I did, was that the company had made no such offer. The commission is entitled and empowered to observe a strict confidence in such figures. If the figures really were offered in confidence, as my hon. and learned Friend alleges, that puts a very different complexion on the matter. If they were offered in confidence and refused, if they were offered in confidence and accepted but ignored, the whole report is different in that respect.
I shall be very interested to hear what my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has to say in reply to what is a very serious charge by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dover, namely that these figures, the absence of which have caused such justifiable criticism, were offered from the beginning, offered again, and offered on Friday in terms of what almost amounts to a public offer, namely, that the company is prepared to make them public providing a good reason is shown. It is obvious what the good reason is. It is that we in the House of Commons need them. Can one have a better reason than that? If that is all that is required to let us know what these figures are, it seems to me that this moment for passing the order is an inopportune one.
I now express a personal view based only on a reading of the report and on no other sources of information or briefing. I have no doubt that at the end of the day the Monopolies Commission is probably right in its conclusions. But I have equal trouble at the moment in thinking that this Wednesday night, with this very important case coming on next week and with the figures having at last been offered quasi-publicly on Friday and perhaps all the time in confidence to the Monopolies Commission, on the


procedure that we are asked to adopt—not on the merits—my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary need not answer the very serious criticisms made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dover.
There is one thing on which I disagree with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dover. I do not think it is right to refer this matter to a Select Committee of the House. I think the question of whether natural justice has or has not been observed is in very good hands in those of a judge of the Chancery Division. That is a quicker and to my mind less biased or collaterally motived affair, and I am glad to think that it will occur next week. I shall abide by the judge's decision. If, as I believe, he decides that the commission observed considerations of natural justice, I shall be happy to vote for the order. But I should like to vote for it next Wednesday rather than this Wednesday.

10.45 p.m.

Mr. Anthony Wedgwood Benn: This has been a very important and somewhat surprising debate. I had come hoping to contribute modestly to the arguments which would be brought forward, but I think I am right in saying that not a single hon. Member opposite who has spoken has supported the Under-Secretary of State in his presentation of the order. Since these matters are very important, perhaps I may be allowed to comment briefly on some of the points which have been made.
First, the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) was a Minister in the Department when it referred Roche, as he frankly admitted, to the Monopolies Commission. He knows very well how the commission's inquiries take place. Indeed, he was pledged in the election to strengthen the control of monopolies.
The hon. and learned Member for Dover (Mr. Peter Rees) referred to this as a Star Chamber procedure—a curious phrase. He should compare it with the procedure which the Government have forced through, with the votes of hon. Members opposite, under the Counter-Inflation Act, by which wages are controlled by the Pay Board without its having to come back to the House of Commons at all. There is no procedure for wage controls or, indeed, for price

controls under the counter-inflation legislation to come back to Parliament at all.
The Monopolies Commission, unlike the Price Commission, examines its cases over a very long period. I do not know how long it was engaged in the Roche matter, but it must have been from autumn 1970 until spring 1973, which means that it was a fairly long inquiry. To describe that as a Star Chamber procedure is to do less than justice to a fairly established and fairly highly respected body of doctrine and practice which has grown up around the commission, and certainly, when the final decision is open to both Houses of Parliament by vote, does not do justice to the procedure through which the inquiry has been conducted.

Mr. Peter Rees: If the right hon. Gentleman had listened carefully to my speech, he would have understood that I was tentative in my analogy. I was not concerned with the policies which the Sitar Chamber was designed to implement, nor particularly with the policies which the Monopolies Commission is designed to implement. I was commenting that the consequences of the decisions of both were of extreme importance to those involved and that the commission does not, and the Star Chamber did not, adopt normal procedures used in our courts, but, instead, uses inquisitorial procedures which possibly in our experience do not give the defence the same opportunities of deploying its case as the more usual methods adopted in the High Court.

Mr. Benn: The hon. and learned Gentleman knows very well what connotations of the Star Chamber were to the dissenters who had their ears cut off and were generally pilloried. That is the public understanding of the Star Chamber. In the last few weeks, the hon. and learned Gentleman has trooped through the Lobby in support of the Counter-Inflation Act, which lays down that the Minister is not obliged to consult anyone about its provisions, and, although the Minister will consult, that is not to be taken as implying that further consultation is required where he is satisfied that sufficient consultation has taken place and the information available is sufficient for his purpose. In other words, the Minister can brush aside requests from any union which wants to come up with a wage


claim and say "No. I had these consultations months ago."
The Monopolies Commission, with all its defects—no commission can be perfect—comes as near to a body making a proper examination of difficult economic and industrial problems as we can devise. It does it at length. It asks for information. Opportunities to appear before it are available, which is not true of the Pay Board or the Price Commission, and both Houses of Parliament have an opportunity of debating its reports. That is not a Star Chamber, and the hon. and learned Gentleman, who is a distinguished lawyer highly respected in this field, should not have used that parallel.
I come now to the point about the bullying of the company in defiance of natural justice. Only a few days ago, on 27th June, the Minister for Trade and Consumer Affairs had to come to the House and make a statement in these terms:
Roche intends to disregard the order and to raise the prices to pre-order levels tomorrow at noon. … It has been reported that, without waiting for the Government's reply, Roche today informed pharmaceutical wholesalers that prices have been raised"—
one notes the words "have been raised"—
in breach of the order as from 9 a.m. today
Remembering all the speeches made by hon. Members opposite about law and order and the need for people to obey the law, when I hear a Minister telling us that this international company, in defiance of an order, which, of course, had current validity deriving from this House, intended to raise prices none the less, I can only say that that puts a totally different perspective on the matter from the one given by hon. Gentlemen in this debate.
The hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury asked whether it was wise to keep prices down. Admittedly, he gave some reason for that, but it certainly threw doubt, and the use of such phrases when studied in HANSARD will throw some doubt, upon the seriousness with which the Government are pursuing their counter-inflation policy.
The matter goes further than that. Two hon. Members said that other companies. British companies, charge profits at this

level. The hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury, I think it was, said that there are British multinationals charging three times as much abroad as they do here. This is getting a little like the Lonrho board. When businessmen fall out, they are quite happy to throw dirt at each other. In fact, this case is revealing for public examination a very important pricing issue which ought to be publicly discussed and decided.
I support the Minister tonight. He knows that because I indicated my support when the Question was answered a week ago. In my view, Roche has not played a very reputable rôle in this affair. I can only give my own judgment, and I think that it was not a reputable rôle.
It did not co-operate with the Monopolies Commission, although that commission represents the law of the land in the country in which the company operates. Roche is an important supplier to the National Health Service, one of its customers, and a very good one at that. Its failure to supply all the necessary information to the Monopolies Commission was, I think, wrong. The disclosure which Roche has now decided to make was, in my judgment, a product of Government pressure, and I greatly welcome the fact that the Minister, by sticking to his guns, has succeeded in getting a late disclosure, though even now it is the company which prevents him—not the Minister himself—

Mr. Ridley: No.

Mr. Benn: Of course, it is the company which prevents him from making this information available to the House tonight. It is no good the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury shaking his head. Roche could have made this information available to the Monopolies Commission. It could have made it available to the Special Orders Committee of the House of Lords, had it chosen to do so. It could have made it available to the sponsoring Minister and to the customer Minister. It could have made it available to the other place when it was discussing whether to accept the report of the Special Orders Committee. It could have published it so that tonight the House could have had an informed debate.
In the light of all that, it is quite wrong for the company to present itself as an


aggrieved party in this matter, since it has behaved quite improperly, in my judgment, in its dealings with the Department, with the Minister concerned, and with the Monopolies Commission.

Mr. Ridley: I gather that the right hon. Gentleman's information only confirms that Roche can do its long division correctly. It backs up the fact that the percentages given in the report are correct. Could it be that the truth is that this information is of no value whatever and that this may be why neither the Department of Trade and Industry nor Roche seems very keen to publish it?

Mr. Benn: The hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury cannot have it both ways. A few moments ago he was telling the House that as the information was not available to the House it would be unfair for the Minister to ask the House to pass the order. He now says that the information is of no relevance and that there is nothing to stop the House passing the order. Since he was the Minister who was in the Department when the reference was made to the Monopolies Commission, he must now make up his mind.
I come to the rôle of the House of Lords in handling matters of this kind. It is open to serious difficulty from the point of view of the House of Commons if the hybridity rule applies to orders of this kind in another place so that the Monopolies Commission's recommendation can be subjected to intensely long and detailed discussions in a committee of non-elected members, where the House of Commons is denied such an opportunity. It would be wrong for companies to withhold information that should be given to the Monopolies Commission and to hope that by saying that the commission had not had adequate information it would lead to a further examination of the Monopolies Commission's Report in another place. Whatever may be the precedent for the Special Orders Committee's reports in respect of another place, it clearly was well within the power of another place, as it would have been within the power of this place, to reject advice given to it by one of its committees. As the hon. and learned Member for Dover must know, the House of Lords is free

to reach what judgment it likes on the recommendation of its own committees. This is not a parallel with the Judicial Committee nor with the House sitting in its judicial capacity.
The central question is whether the Monopolies Commission's recommendations to us should be upheld by this House by approving an order. I have no doubt in my mind that we are right to support the Minister in coming forward with this order. The argument about whether research and development is valid is not one that can lend itself to expert opinion. Anybody who has any familiarity with research and development knows that companies follow different practices in the amount they put into research and development, how they present it in their accounts, how they fund it, and how they allocate it between different products. It would not be open to either House of Parliament, based on a Select Committee inquiry, to determine the R and D expenditure or how it should be allocated within Roche.
I believe that this case is an important one because it is one of the cases—not the only case—where the sovereignty of the House of Commons, the Government and the country is being tested against the claims of a multinational company to operate, in effect, outside the law. I do net know whether there have been British companies which have declined to give information to the Monopolies Commission. I can recall no argument on this scale by any British company when asked to give evidence to the commission. Those who follow these matters know that the arrival of multinational companies produces problems of a quite different character from the problems we faced when we were dealing primarily with nationally-based companies which probably had some overseas subsidiaries but which broadly regarded themselves as being within the law of the land in which they were situated.
When one is dealing with a big motor car company, with IBM, or with any of these other big multinational companies, it is not only the trade unions which find themselves at a disadvantage. Ministers, and Governments, too, find themselves similarly placed. I wanted to participate briefly in this debate because, in speaking about the multinational, we have to appreciate the danger that it


poses, which is that it may threaten one Government and play off one country against another.
The danger stems not from a dislike of international industrial operations, but from the fact that we are dealing with organisations that span the world. We are dealing with new sovereign bodies which have to be recognised to be of a different order in the power structure from the old national company. That is why disclosure is so important. That is why international action may well be needed at some time in the future. Where Governments have to deal with a particular multinational company, they may have to meet to discuss how to concert their action. That is why trade unions have a part to play in wage negotiations.
The Government, somewhat reluctantly, because it is not their wish to alienate multinational companies and have broadly supported them, have stumbled through the Roche case on to an important fact, and that is that international companies must be seen as a potential threat unless they are ready to obey the law of the land in which they operate.
It is because the Government have been strong and come forward with this order, and because they are seeking an injunction in the courts to prevent the previous order from being disregarded, that I recommend to the House that we should support the order tonight, if necessary in the Lobby, so that it is known abroad that this is not merely a measure brought in by Ministers but that it carries the full support of the Opposition, too.

11.2 p.m.

Mr. Emery: If I may, I should like to deal with a number of points that have been raised during the debate. It would be churlish of me not to try to the best of my ability to reply to them.
There is no doubt on the Government benches, and there never has been, that the drugs Valium and Librium are important. They have played a major part in curative treatment in this country, as they have in the world. Nobody is attempting in any way to cast doubt upon the company or the way in which the drags have been produced.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) said that the Government's action was of the most vicious sort and that we were attempting to bully this company. In his brilliant advocacy, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dover (Mr. Peter Rees) implied that he did not want to compare the Monopolies Commission with the Star Chamber, but by his own admission that comparison was made. The whole tenor of the debate has been that the Government are being unfair to multinational companies—"tilting at them" was the term used by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dover—and that this company has not had a proper chance to state its case.
What the Government want to ensure is that any company—Roche or any other—that is considered by the Monopolies Commission is treated fairly. That has been so with Roche, as with any other reference. Even though legal action has been taken with regard to Roche, it is still the Government's view that the company should be treated absolutely fairly.
A number of points have been raised concerning the company's ability to have defended itself.

Mr. Skeet: Hear, hear.

Mr. Emery: As I said in the debate on the first order, this matter did not just arise at the time of the monopoly reference. It had been going on for years. It was the company's unwillingness to cooperate in supplying information under the voluntary price regulation scheme which had begun to cast doubt. All other drug companies, some with directions for information, and multinational companies and other Swiss companies had been willing to co-operate with the Department of Health and Social Security in allowing the Department to arrive at a price, but this company over the years had been unwilling. This is what gave rise to this matter.
Then, when other information came to light the Government felt it right that a reference should be made to the Monopolies Commission. That was in 1971.
The information sought by the Monopolies Commission was difficult to obtain and long and protracted in the obtaining. Hon. Gentleman who suggest that the


company has not been able to present its case are not facing the facts.

Mr. Skeet: Mr. Skeet rose—

Mr. Emery: May I answer some of the questions and then, if there is time, I shall be delighted to try to answer other specific points.
Because I believed that it was probably unnecessary in that they had been stated before, I did not outline some of the Monopolies Commission's major findings, and these have tended to be overlooked tonight. It would perhaps seem to anybody who listened to the debate that they do not arise.

Mr. Skeet: Some were never considered.

Mr. Emery: The Monopolies Commission found that Roche Products was responsible for 99 per cent. of the supply of Valium and Librium and that a monopoly existed. Paragraphs 194 to 217 sum up the commission's conclusions and recommendations. In paragraph 201 the commission said that it did not believe that Roche was subject to significant price competition.
In paragraph 204 the commission concluded that Roche's monopoly position gave it wider than normal freedom to determine its prices and support its monopoly.
In paragraph 212 the commission, in considering the public interest, was concerned to calculate the group profits on the reference products on a number of assumptions. The commission calculated that if Roche Products' arguments about the calculation of cost and prices were accepted the smallest group profits that could be calculated were nearly 40 per cent. on sales of Librium and about 50 per cent. on sales of Valium, equivalent to a rate of return on capital of about 60 per cent. It has been suggested that the commission did not take into account these sorts of figure. That is not the case.
In paragraph 213 the commission concluded that the group profits on the reference products were exceptionally high. I could continue. I do not have to restate the Monopolies Commission's case, but it should not go as though it did not exist, because obviously it does.
There has also been a degree of misunderstanding by some of my hon. Friends which I should like to clear up. As I understand it, the Standing Orders of another place afford private persons or companies an opportunity to appeal to the Special Orders Committee, which may recommend that their case may be heard before the passing of the Private Bill or, in this case, the statutory instrument. But I am informed that such an opportunity is intended to be offered when the person or firm affected by the order has, as yet, had no chance to put his or its case.
That has not been suggested in any of the argument that we have heard from some of my hon. Friends. No one can suggest that Roche has not had the chance to put its case before the Monopolies Commission, which, after all, is the statutory body whose duty it is fully to consider the arguments put to it. Surely no one can suggest that the company of Hoffmann-La Roche did not believe that it was being criticised for being a monopoly and did not believe that it was being criticised because its prices were too high.

Mr. Skeet: My hon. Friend is surely putting it in the wrong way. What the company did not appreciate was the case that it had to meet. Following the original document, which was a sort of pleading indicating the general argument, when it came to the oral hearing the company had no indication of the way that the Monopolies Commission was thinking and the points about research on which it would have to adduce evidence.

Mr. Emery: I see my hon. Friend's argument. I believe that this is the whole case that the company will be making in the High Court. That is its argument in natural justice. It is not for me to argue that particular matter now. It would probably be wrong for me to do so.
I thank the hon. Member for Glasgow, Gorbals (Mr. McElhone) for his intervention. However, his conclusions about bringing the whole of the pharmaceutical industry into the public sector are not relevant to this overall position. The position of that industry as a whole has been a great service to this country. It would be wrong for anyone on the Government Front Bench to suggest otherwise.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dover suggested that the figures which were needed were available because they had been agreed by the Inland Revenue.

Mr. Peter Rees: No. Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Emery: If I am misinterpreting my hon. and learned Friend, which is the last thing that I should want to do, I will give way.
The Revenue figures are not available to the commission. They are for tax information and are strictly confidential. I assumed—perhaps incorrectly—from the argument of my hon. and learned Friend that the Revenue figures had some relevance to the commission and, therefore, would be more easily understood by the commission. That is not the case because the Revenue figures are completely confidential.

Mr. Rees: As I said, I am not privy to Roche's counsels. I do not know in detail the case that the company has made or will make. But, as I understand it, the figures that it offered to the Monopolies Commission in confidence, on the basis that they should not be for publication—it can be read out of the commission's report that figures were offered to it but not for publication—were only figures designed to support other figures which were produced for the commission. The basis of these other figures had been agreed by it with the Swiss and United Kingdom revenue authorities. Therefore, those figures could have been accepted with relative ease by the Monopolies Commission.

Mr. Emery: I think I have cleared up the confidentiality aspect. I do not believe that I or my hon. and learned Friend are the people who should make the judgment of the commission for it. It made its judgment. It is open to anyone to say that the commission was wrong, but it is not necessarily right for the person being investigated to suggest that these figures shall not be produced because at that stage it is not believed that they are relevant.
The timing argument was the main disagreement of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Darwen (Mr.

Fletcher-Cooke), whose tribute to the Monopolies Commission I was glad to hear. The timing is a procedural matter. The proceedings next week apply only to the Government application for the injunction which has been forced by Roche's threat to raise the price of its products. There is not much hope that that will be dealt with next week. According to my information, it is likely to run for a number of weeks. The substantive hearing on Roche's writ will not take place at least before October, and is then likely to run many months. So there would be no right time to take the order, if one accepted that argument.
The Government want to ensure that anyone investigated by the Monopolies Commission is treated absolutely fairly. We believe that nothing has arisen since the first order was made to change our view that this order is right and proper and should have the support of the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the Regulation of Prices (Tranquillising Drugs) (No. 3) Order 1973 (S.I., 1973, No. 1693), dated 21st June 1973, a copy of which was laid before this House on 22nd June, be approved.

NATURE CONSERVANCY COUNCIL BILL [Lords]

Order for Second Reading read.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 66 (Second Reading Committees), That the Bill be now read a Second Time.

Question agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

NATURE CONSERVANCY COUNCIL (MONEY)

Queen's Recommendation having been signified.

Resolved,

That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to establish a Nature Conservancy Council, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any expenses of the Secretary of State under that Act.—[Mr. Graham Page.]

ADJOURNMENT

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Kenneth Clarke.]

DIABETIC CHILDREN

11.19 p.m.

Mr. T. L. Iremonger: The matter I have to raise tonight is the special needs of diabetic children and their parents. I have in the borough of Redbridge, of which my constituency is a part, a very active and energetic group of members of the British Diabetics Association, who form the Ilford and District Club Parents' Group, now known as the Young Diabetics. The group consists of parents of children who suffer from diabetes.
I know that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security will wish to join me in thanking the association generally for the service it performs in keeping the problems of diabetics in the forefront of his attention. I am sure that he would like also to join me in thanking my Ilford Young Diabetics for the stimulus they have given us both to consider their problems. I know that my hon. Friend's attendance here tonight will be very much appreciated by those parents and thousands of others in other boroughs who are similarly unfortunately placed.
About one in a thousand children is diabetic—between 30 and 40 at any given time in the borough of Redbridge. In children the onset of diabetes is usually sudden. The condition is invariably severe from the outset. When I asked one of my constituents what was the first indication, she said that the child went into a coma. This sudden and inevitably very frightening happening is for thousands of children and their parents the beginning not so much of an illness as of a new way of life. The diabetic must conform to a certain exacting regime for life. "It's jabs for life", as they say, in two senses. The injections must go on for the entire life of the individual, and they must go on in order that life may continue.
There is no known cure, and without the regime of treatment, consisting of a

balance between diet and injection of insulin, death is inevitable. Therefore, this life regime is especially difficult and especially important for children. It is part of my purpose tonight to ask that we should make it as little difficult as possible for all children, without the extra expense now involved in the special kind of treatment appliances to which I want to draw my hon. Friend's attention. I shall submit that this may be done at a minimal cost, at most, to public funds.
The main feature, apart from the rigorous imperative of the diet, in the lifelong regime of the child diabetic is the daily—and in some cases two or three times daily—painful, irritating but vital ritual of injections. Without constant artificial injections of insulin which their own bodies will not produce, the necessary balance between just enough and a fatal surplus of blood sugar cannot be maintained. A peculiar misfortunate of child diabetics is that they can get their artificial insulin only by way of injections all their lives. They can never get it from tablets taken by mouth as can many of those who first become diabetics when they are already adult.
A parent—it is usually the mother—must get her, perhaps very young, child to administer the injections to himself or herself every day, day after day, for ever. Therefore, the actual process is something that matters very much, not only to the child who has to do it and to suffer it but to parents, and to brothers and sisters too.
The injections can be very much more difficult and painful and irksome than they need be; under the provision made free by the National Health Service it certainly is much more difficult and painful and irksome than it need be or ought to be. That is because the syringes and the needles supplied free by the National Health Service are not so good from the point of view of ease, painlessness, skin damage avoidance and convenience as the disposable syringes and needles which are available to those who are willing and able to pay for them privately.
My first request to the Minister is to make available free on the National Health Service the superior modern disposable packs of syringes and needles at least to children on general practitioner


prescriptions. The old kind of syringe and needle supplied free at present has disadvantages. The needle is used again and again and it becomes blunt. The jab is therefore painful. Its bluntness causes painful bumps and scars. The syringe degenerates with use and constant sterilisation. The piston becomes loose in the cylinder, causing it to stick. Further, the joint of the syringe with the needle becomes loose so that the needle detaches itself in the middle of an injection.
One mother told me that her little daughter had to have three jabs on one occasion before a successful injection could be achieved. That is just one extra part in the task of the family of a diabetic child of getting the family off to school in the morning. In contrast, the disposable syringe and needle is for use only once. The syringe and the needle are brand new every time. The syringe is invariably perfect in functioning. The needle is absolutely sharp so that the child does not feel it enter the skin.
To buy such disposable packs, which any parent is at liberty to do, would cost for an average regime upwards of £1 a month. It is not so much the sum as the principle and the priority which troubles many parents. The cost of £25 a year could be regarded as a very unwelcome extra tax. If a Chancellor of the Exchequer were for once to refrain from taking £25 in tax from a taxpayer he would expect that to be regarded as a mighty bounteous Budget dowry. But this is a matter of deciding the relative importance and priority which should be given to a need which strikes deeply into the hearts of thousands of families. If I were in their position my feeling would be that the quality of the need was of a high order and that the priority for meeting it out of public funds was correspondingly high.
I know it may be said that what I am asking for cannot be limited to children and that the cost to public funds would be the cost of providing free disposable needles and syringes for all diabetics, adults included. However, if general practitioners can make distinctions in other cases I do not see why they should not be able to do so when treating diabetics. I do not see why they should

not be able to distinguish between prescriptions for adults and for children.
But, even if it were not possible to make that distinction, I should urge that the provision should be made, if necessary at the cost required to supply all adults and children alike, for the sake of the children. Without in the least detracting from the plea which I make, it should be put on record, if only to preserve the position, that I do not believe that value added tax should be eroded as a universal consumption tax by exempting any and every useful and necessary article, no matter how worthy the priorities for which it is used.
I wish to ask the Minister for three more things which can be stated briefly and need little explanation but are none the less important for that. First, will the Minister take special steps to see that the Secretary of State for Education and Science alerts local authorities to the importance of warning heads of schools of the special precautions necessary in caring for diabetic children? Every teacher with a diabetic child in his care should know that the child is diabetic. He should know something about the child's diet and, most importantly, he should know and be able to recognise the symptoms of hypoglycaemia and be able to give the simple treatment necessary without delay.
A further useful routine for schools would be to print menus for school meals a week in advance so that they could be circulated to the parents of diabetic children and the parents and the child could agree in advance what the child should eat at school. This would also be helpful for mothers of families in planning family meals at home, which has to be done with a special eye to what the diabetic child has eaten elsewhere.
There is a need for area diabetic clinics to be established throughout the country. These need not be many, but they must be enough to enable any worried mother of a diabetic child, where-ever she might live or be staying, to have immediate access by telephone at any hour of the day or night to someone on whose advice she can rely with special reference to the needs of the diabetic child. All children get suddenly and frighteningly ill sometimes. Usually it is nothing terribly serious. Even if it is


serious doctors and hospitals manage marvellously to help, but there are special complications and dangers when a child is diabetic because the diabetes can be affected by the other illness—they react on one another—and special treatment may be required for both the specific illness and the diabetes. That may call for instant specialised advice, and many mothers may be diffident in demanding this, unable to explain exactly what is required and unable to be reassured unless they have someone in whom they have confidence to explain to the doctor who is treating the child for the immediate illness that the diabetic aspect is being properly taken care of.
Finally, I ask the Minister for a word about fundamental research into the cause and cure of diabetes. I discern a depressing note of fatalism and acceptance in medical attitudes in this respect. It may be that the miracle of insulin has acted against research into the cause and cure of diabetes. It is almost as though, having turned certain death into something that can be controlled, we have somehow exhausted our resources of endeavour.
I ask the Minister whether anything serious is being done specifically to examine the causes and possible cure. If nothing is being done—as I suspect—why should this be so? Need it be so? What, if anything, can be done? Will the Minister explain what is being done and how hopeful in his assessment is the prospect of finding a permanent cure for a disease which at the moment is bound to be lifelong?

11.34 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Michael Alison): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Word, North (Mr. Ire-monger) both on securing the Adjournment and on choosing a subject which, although it is perhaps not so dramatic as some with which I am involved, is nevertheless one of real concern. Perhaps he will allow me to associate myself with the specific commendations he made about the family organisation, the parents in his constituency and elsewhere who are showing such a determined spirit to co-operate together and help themselves and the public good in this manner.
Fortunately, diabetes is uncommon in childhood. Below the age of five only 0·3 per 1,000 children suffer from it: in the age group five to 15 the incidence is about 1 per 1,000 school children.
Fifty years ago diabetics who developed the condition in childhood died soon after, usually within 18 months of diagnosis. The introduction of insulin has altered this but the average expectation of life is still less than 20 years from diagnosis.
Once a diagnosis of diabetes has been made and the acute metabolic disturbance has been corrected in hospital, the stabilisation of the diabetes and education of the child and the parents begin—as my hon. Friend said, the beginning of a lifelong process. Diabetes starting in childhood almost always involves lifelong daily or twice-daily injections of insulin.
The great majority of diabetics are able to lead reasonably normal lives. Once they have mastered the technique of managing the disease, many remain under the care of their family doctors. For those who need regular specialist medical supervision, this is provided at district general hospitals, most of which run special diabetic clinics for patients of all ages.
Most diabetic children go to ordinary schools. There is no doubt, however, that diabetes is a limitation on a child. I have already mentioned the need for injections. Meals must be assessed for carbohydrate content and the right amount taken at the right time to balance food, exercise and insulin. Some form of carbohydrate, such as lumps of sugar, must always be carried in case of emergency. Special physical exertion must be matched by taking extra carbohydrate.
The need for these precautions can lead to stress for the child—there is no doubt of this—for his parents and for teachers. Any child will break the diet rules sometimes and especially during the naturally rebellious period of adolescence: all will need help in keeping to the diet. Many diabetic children show some degree of emotional disturbance, and anxiety symptoms are more prominent in mothers of diabetic children than of other children.
All the health and social services need to co-operate in helping families who have these problems: family doctors,


hospitals, health visitors, district nurses, social workers, the medical and nursing staff of the school health service, and teachers. The reorganisation of the National Health Service will, we believe, open the way to the creation of a comprehensive child health service from which all children will greatly benefit. Allied to this reorganisation are arrangements for collaboration between the National Health Service and local authorities—local health authorities in particular—which will provide a frame-work for close working between social workers and the health service.
Clearly, there are many problems involved in the care of diabetic children. My hon. Friend has touched on several, and I think it would be to the benefit of the House if I now try to outline the Government's views on the points he has raised.
I take the question of disposable syringes and needles first. Disposable syringes are not available on prescription by a general practitioner under the National Health Service. They were developed especially to meet the needs of hospitals, where it is essential to have available, sometimes in an emergency, a supply of absolutely sterile syringes. This avoids the serious risk of cross-infection which can arise. For the same reasons they are available for use by general practitioners. But these reasons do not apply where a patient has a personal syringe for injections which he administers himself.
Most insulin preparations are to some extent self-sterilising, and where a syringe is used only by one person the dangers of infection are minimal. The non-disposable glass and metal syringes supplied on prescription are suitable for the vast majority of patients who need regular insulin injections.
Both the syringes and the needles must comply with the British Standards specification. Provided the needles are treated with reasonable care, I am advised that they normally remain sharp and can give nearly painless injections for quite a time. My hon. Friend described the condition into which some of them can fall with prolonged use, but general practitioners can prescribe these syringes in appropriate quantities, so that problems of

depreciation, as it were, can be dealt with within the normal prescribing machinery by family doctors.
In the exceptional case where the family doctor considers that only disposable syringes are suitable on medical grounds, he may refer the patient to hospital, where a consultant, if he agrees, can authorise a supply of them to last until the next visit. I appreciate that some diabetic patients who have no special need for disposable syringes may nevertheless prefer to use them and may find them a little more convenient. We naturally like to meet patients' preferences when we can reasonably do so, but the additional cost of providing disposable syringes and needles on prescription is estimated to be about £2 million a year.
In a sector such as ours with almost limitless demand for more facilities but where the supply of resources is inevitably limited—my lion. Friend, as the author of a book on economics, will know about this—this is not an insignificant sum. It would enable us to double the expenditure on the invalid vehicle service, or to introduce 10 major operating theatre suites. These are matters of great significance for the groups involved. We are faced with an appalling dilemma of priorities, and the sum of £2 million is critical for many projects which might have to be abandoned.
My right hon. Friend therefore feels that, as the existing arrangements are considered adequate to meet both general and medical needs, an additional annual expenditure of this order could not be justified while there are so many competing claims on the funds available for the National Health Service. It would not be possible to make special provision for general practitioner prescribing of disposable syringes limited to children, as my hon. Friend proposed. There is no power to restrict prescribing by general practitioners in this way, and even if we had such power I doubt whether an acceptable scheme could be devised.
If a general practitioner were able to prescribe disposable syringes and needles he would be under pressure to meet parent preferences and would find it very difficult to restrict this prescribing to cases of medical need. I am afraid, therefore, that we cannot meet the request that


disposable syringes should be made available on prescription by a general practitioner.
I return to the point made earlier, that if the GP feels that there is a medical case for disposable syringes in a family or for an individual he can take it to the consultant who can authorise a supply.
The arrangements I have described are generally adequate but if my hon. Friend has evidence that individual patients who need such syringes or needles on medical grounds are experiencing difficulty, and it may be that the groups to which he has referred have such difficulty, if he will send me details I will look into the cases.
I now turn to the suggestion that there should be area diabetic clinics for emergency consultation. On the face of it, this has considerable appeal, and my hon. Friend has eloquently outlined the fears which some parents face when their diabetic children contract one of the childhood illnesses. But I hope that my hon. Friend, on reflection, will agree that the family doctor is responsible for the medical care of a patient who suffers from diabetes, and it is to him that parents should look for advice on the health of their children.
This applies to emergencies involving patients with diabetes. It is for the family doctor to decide whether it is necessary for reference to be made to the specialist services of the NHS. While parents are naturally concerned when their children are I have seen no evidence that the existing arrangements for the treatment of diabetes need supplementing by special area diabetic clinics for emergency consultation by parents.
My hon. Friend has pointed out the enormous importance of informing schools of any of their pupils suffering from diabetes. I am happy to assure him that, in order that the school health services and the schools may play a full part in caring for the child who returns to school after the correction of the acute metabolic disturbance, the school health service and the school attended by the child are both informed. The way in which this is done varies. Usually the hospital or general practitioner informs the school medical officer and he, or an administrator in the school health ser-

vice or general local education authority office, lets the head teacher know. There may well be a part which social workers can play in informing the school of diabetic children and in keeping an eye on the progress of the child at home. On the whole, however, it seems more appropriate for the school health service medical officer, nurse or health visitor to undertake the liaison between health services and school, with social workers playing the equally important but non-medical rôles in welfare work. But we are confident that there is no possibility of a breakdown in the necessary communication between diagnostic and treatment services and what gees on in the schools.
The final major point raised by my hon. Friend was perhaps the most important of all—the extent of research into the cause and cure of diabetes. Government-sponsored research into the basic mechanisms of diabetes and applied research connected with it is carried out under the general aegis of the Medical Research Council. A number of research teams are working on different aspects of diabetes. For example, fundamental research is being pursued into the structure of the insulin molecule and the way in which it is made naturally in the body, into the mechanisms of its release from the pancreas and the point at which these mechanisms become deranged, thus leading to the clinical disease.
It is now becoming recognised that there are several distinct types of diabetes each with its own characteristics, possibly each with its own separate cause and differing in symptoms and prognosis. For several years drugs have been developed which can be given by mouth to patients with the less severe type of diabetes as a substitute for injections of insulin. Recently this form of treatment has been criticised on the ground of relative lack of effectiveness in the long term. Earlier this year this problem was referred to the Medical Research Council, which has as a result set up a working party under the chairmanship of Professor Sir Richard Doll at Oxford to conduct a thorough trial of these "oral agents". I shall await with interest the results of these trials.
I hope that what I have said will lead my hon. Friend to agree that we take


the problems associated with diabetes in childhood seriously, and that we are conscious of the wide-ranging needs of such children and their parents. If he has any evidence of particular cases where things are going wrong and a child appears not to be getting the help he needs, I would be more than happy to have them investigated.
My hon. Friend asked me to comment on the pessimism or optimism with which I view the general sphere of research and the possibilities of improvements. It is dangerous to be specific about an imponderable future. I can point out only what happened in the past and remind him that there was a dramatic improvement in the prognosis of the condition as a result of the insulin discoveries, and there is evidence, therefore, on the basis

of this precedent at least, that there may well be some possibility of a major step forward in the future.
I cannot be specific but I am optimistic that research will be pursued with vigour and with conscientious zeal by those who are involved in these questions because they know only too acutely what the problems are for those who suffer from the disease.

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at eleven minutes to Twelve o'clock.